Chapter 3 - The Unraveling**
"Mr. Stewart... please," Nicholas practically begged, casting a terrified glance at the surrounding tables of staring investors and whispering socialites. "There are private rooms upstairs. We have a VIP lounge with champagne, imported caviar, and actual adults. You can't... you shouldn't be sitting here with... with her."
Emmett didn't look up from the drawing. He slowly capped the Montblanc pen and set it beside the green crayon. Then, very deliberately, he raised his gaze to meet my brother's panic-stricken eyes.
"And why is that, Mr. Vance?" Emmett asked smoothly. "Is Table Nineteen intellectually contaminated?"
"She's... she's just my sister," Nicholas blurted out, his voice cracking with desperation. "She writes... web content. Lifestyle pieces. She doesn't run in our circles. She doesn't understand the level of business being conducted here tonight. She's out of her depth."
A heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the corner of the ballroom.
I set my crayon down. The cold, protective shell I had worn all day began to crack open, exposing the hot, sharp steel beneath it. I opened my mouth to speak, to rip away my brother's illusions right there in front of his precious investors, but Emmett raised a single finger, cutting me off.
"Web content," Emmett repeated, tasting the words as if they were poisonous. He stood up slowly, towering over Nicholas. "Mr. Vance, let me educate you on something about the circles you are so desperate to break into."
Emmett stepped away from the table, closing the distance between himself and my brother until Nicholas was forced to physically lean backward.
"Three weeks ago, my company faced a hostile hostile takeover attempt that threatened to wipe out four thousand jobs and tank our stock valuation by forty percent," Emmett said, his voice carrying clearly to every corner of the silent hall. "Do you know who wrote the strategic messaging framework that reframed our public narrative, neutralized our board dissidents, and single-handedly saved our valuation within forty-eight hours?"
Nicholas swallowed hard, his eyes darting frantically. "A... a PR firm in New York?"
"No," Emmett said coldly. "It was written by a woman sitting at a plastic table eating cold chicken nuggets while wearing a light blue dress her brother forced her to buy."
The color drained entirely from Nicholas's face. He staggered backward, his heels catching on the edge of a decorative rug. "What? That... that's impossible. You contracted Apex Media—"
"Apex Media is a front that resells her ghostwritten briefs at a four-hundred-percent markup," Emmett interrupted, his voice dripping with absolute contempt. "Your sister, Jenna Vance, is not some minor lifestyle blogger. She is the principal intellectual architect behind three of the largest tech mergers in Silicon Valley over the past two years, including the very contract your company is currently trying to sub-licence from us."
The ballroom erupted into a low, stunned murmur.
My mother dropped her champagne flute; it shattered against the marble floor with a sharp, echoing crash. My father stood up halfway, his face turning the color of an overripe plum, opening and closing his mouth without producing a single sound.
May you like
Nicholas stared at me, his eyes wide with absolute, primal horror, as if he were looking at a ghost stepping out of a nightmare.
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