Chapter 5: The Wedding Gift
The panic that broke across Emmett Durham's face lasted less than a second, but for Rosalie, it was the first time in her life she had ever seen her father look small.
"This is ridiculous," Emmett barked, gesturing sharply to his security men. "She's unstable! She stole those documents from my private study! Crawford, call the judge—tell him she's having an episode!"
"The judge has already listened to microcassette number two, Emmett," Manuel said, stepping between Rosalie and her father. "The one where you told Lorelei that if she didn't sign the offshore transfer forms, she would end up at the bottom of the Duluth ravine."
Emmett lunged forward, his hand raising instinctively as if to strike Rosalie across the face—the same gesture that had kept her silent since she was a teenager.
He never made contact.
Manuel caught Emmett's wrist in mid-air, his grip hard enough to make the older man gasp in sharp, sudden pain.
"Don't ever reach for my wife again," Manuel said, his voice quiet, steady, and loud enough to echo off the marble walls. "Your money is gone. Your judges are recused. And the FBI white-collar division is currently executing a search warrant on your offices in Duluth."
Two federal marshals stepped out of the stairwell at the far end of the corridor, their badges clipped to their belts, their hands resting near their holsters as they moved straight toward Emmett's legal team.
Rosalie stepped forward. She didn't look at the marshals, and she didn't look at the lawyers. She looked directly into her father's eyes.
"You told everyone I was a monster," Rosalie whispered, her voice ringing with absolute clarity through the silent hallway. "You told them I was ugly, broken, and unlovable so nobody would ever look close enough to see what you were doing in the dark."
She reached into her coat pocket, pulled out the heavy gold wedding ring Emmett had forced her mother to wear for thirty years, and dropped it onto the marble floor at his shoes.
May you like
"I am my mother's daughter," Rosalie said. "And we are finally done with you."
As the handcuffs clicked around Emmett Durham's wrists, Manuel offered Rosalie his arm. She took it—not as a captive, and not as an obligation, but as a woman walking out of a cage she had just burned to the ground.
