Chapter 16 - The Senator’s Collapse
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Senator Arthur Morrow stood frozen on the edge of the dais as camera shutters clicked like machine-gun fire around the ballroom, capturing his daughter’s manic outburst alongside the projected bank records on the screen behind his head.
"Arthur," one of the federal circuit judges in the front row said quietly, setting his champagne glass onto a linen table and stepping back from the podium. "Is that your offshore blind trust listed on the routing wire to Crestline Harbor Holdings?"
"I—I had no knowledge of my daughter’s private expenditures!" Senator Morrow stammered, sweat pouring down his temples as he backed away from Vivien as if she were on fire. "If Vivien hired a private investigator or tampered with Mrs. Varelli’s medication, she acted entirely alone! My office has had zero contact with Julian Cross!"
Vivien whipped her head around toward her father, her eyes wide with disbelief and betrayal as her silver hair comb slipped loose and clattered onto the marble steps.
"Acted alone?!" Vivien shrieked across the silent ballroom, pointing a shaking finger straight at her father’s chest while the state police recorders captured every syllable. "You’re the one who gave me the contact number for the compounding pharmacist in New Haven, Dad! You told me two months ago at the yacht club that as long as the old woman was alive to veto the voting trust on her letter board, Julian Cross wouldn't release the two million dollars to cover your campaign debt!"
A collective gasp tore through the two hundred guests. Senator Morrow’s mouth opened and closed silently like a landed fish, his political career and his freedom dying in the span of six seconds under the bright lights of Newport society.
At the back of the room, Julian Cross cursed under his breath as two federal marshals immediately stepped behind him and produced steel handcuffs.
"Senator Arthur Morrow, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder and federal wire fraud," one of the marshals announced, walking up the center aisle while two state troopers flanked him.
Detective Lieutenant Reeves stepped onto the dais beside Dominic, pulling a pair of handcuffs from his belt as he looked at Vivien.
"Hold on one second, Lieutenant," Dominic said evenly.
Dominic looked down at Vivien’s trembling left hand.
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"Take my grandmother’s ring off your finger, Vivien," Dominic said, his voice ringing clearly across the room. "Or I let my security chief take the finger with it."
Sobbing with rage and humiliation, Vivien yanked the four-carat emerald-cut diamond off her knuckle and hurled it at Dominic’s chest. Dominic caught the ring effortlessly out of the air with one hand, dropped it into a glass of ice water on the waiter’s tray to be sterilized, and stepped aside so Lieutenant Reeves could snap the steel cuffs around Vivien’s wrists over her Valentino silk sleeves.
