Alexander attempted to recover his composure. He adjusted his burgundy tie and forced a laugh, but the sound was strained.
ALEXANDER: "This is ridiculous. She's my sister. We were having a family disagreement."
MASTER CHIEF HAYES: "You assaulted a senior officer in front of hundreds of witnesses. This is not a family disagreement."
ALEXANDER: "You don't understand what she's like."
MASTER CHIEF HAYES: "I understand exactly what I witnessed."
The security officers approached Alexander from either side. He took a step backward and bumped into the edge of a banquet table. Several glasses rattled.
Victoria immediately moved between him and the officers.
VICTORIA: "Please, there is no need to make a scene. We can resolve this privately."
Isabella looked at her mother.
ISABELLA: "You were comfortable making a scene when it was me standing here."
Victoria opened her mouth but could not find an answer.
For the first time that evening, the people around her were not looking at her as a respected society woman. They were watching a mother who had defended one child while allowing the other to be humiliated.
At the rear of the ballroom, the double doors opened.
An older man entered, carrying a dark navy-blue leather briefcase beneath his arm. He wore a charcoal suit, a white shirt, and a dark tie. His silver hair was neatly combed, and his expression was unusually serious.
His name was Richard Bennett.
He was a lawyer who had worked with the Montgomery family for many years, although most people in the room did not know that connection.
Isabella recognized him immediately.
Richard had been her late father's attorney and one of the few people who had remained in contact with her after she left the family estate. She had not expected to see him at the gala.
He walked through the ballroom without rushing, his eyes briefly meeting Isabella's before turning toward Victoria.
The moment Victoria saw the briefcase, the color began to drain from her face.
Her reaction was subtle, but Isabella noticed it.
So did Richard.
VICTORIA: "Richard?"
He stopped beside the table.
RICHARD: "Good evening, Victoria."
VICTORIA: "What are you doing here?"
RICHARD: "I came because tonight is the first opportunity I've had to deliver something your husband entrusted to me."
Victoria's fingers tightened around the stem of her champagne glass.
VICTORIA: "This is neither the time nor the place."
RICHARD: "I'm afraid your husband specifically instructed me not to delay any longer."
Isabella looked from Richard to her mother.
ISABELLA: "What did Father leave with you?"
Richard did not answer immediately. Instead, he placed the dark blue briefcase carefully on the table between them.
The sound of its base touching the polished surface seemed unusually loud in the quiet ballroom.
RICHARD: "Your father asked me to keep this secure until the truth could no longer be hidden."
Victoria stepped forward.
VICTORIA: "You promised Frank you would leave the past alone."
Richard looked directly at her.
RICHARD: "I promised Frank I would protect what he left behind. Those are not the same thing."
Alexander looked irritated, but the confidence had begun to disappear from his face.
ALEXANDER: "Can someone explain what this is about?"
Richard ignored him.
He opened the briefcase just enough to remove a thick document folder. Then he placed it on the table and turned the first page toward Victoria.
Isabella noticed that her mother's expression had changed completely.
There was no longer anger in her eyes.
There was fear.
At the top of the page, written in the unmistakable handwriting of Isabella's late father, were seven words:
VICTORIA KNOWS WHERE THE MONEY REALLY WENT.
Isabella stared at the sentence.
For a moment, the ballroom seemed to disappear around her. She could hear only the distant sound of her own breathing and the quiet movement of people standing nearby.
Her father had been dead for nearly two years.
Why would he leave a message like this?
What money had he been referring to?
And why had Victoria looked so frightened when she saw the folder?
Richard closed the briefcase and placed both hands on the table.
RICHARD: "Isabella, your father wanted you to read this when you were finally in a position to understand what happened."
Victoria shook her head.
VICTORIA: "Richard, stop. You have no right to bring this into the open."
RICHARD: "I have every right. Frank made certain of that."
Isabella looked at the first page again.
She had spent years believing that her family had rejected her because she had chosen a different future. She had accepted that her mother might never understand her, and she had stopped expecting her brother to treat her with respect.
But this was something else.
Her father's final message suggested that the family conflict she remembered might have been only the surface of a much larger story.
And whatever had happened to the money, her father had believed that Victoria knew the truth.
Isabella raised her eyes toward her mother.
ISABELLA: "What did Father mean?"
Victoria did not answer.