Julian’s trembling fingers hovered over the red-crested ring. The founding bloodline. *The Vane bloodline.*
“That’s impossible,” Cassandra hissed, stepping forward, her diamond necklace flashing like crushed ice under the chandeliers. “The true Vane heiress died in the Alps thirty years ago!”
“Did she?” The old woman’s lips curled into a predatory smile. She didn’t look like a ghost anymore. She looked like an apex predator who had finally cornered her prey. “You pushed a girl off a cliff, Julian. But you forgot that monsters know how to climb back up.”
A collective gasp ripped through the ballroom. The elite guests whispered, stepping away from their billionaire host as if he were suddenly infectious.
Julian swallowed hard, his polished facade shattering. “Security! Arrest this lunatic!”
The female guard in the black suit, who had been shadowing Cassandra all night, immediately stepped forward. But she didn’t grab the old woman. Instead, she unclipped a pair of steel handcuffs, seized Cassandra’s wrists, and violently locked them together.
“What are you doing?!” Cassandra shrieked, thrashing against the guard’s iron grip.
All around the grand ballroom, the perimeter security team drew their weapons, stepping in unison to barricade the heavy oak doors. The exit was completely sealed.
The old woman calmly snatched her ring back from Julian’s paralyzed hand and slipped it onto her weathered finger.
“You see, Julian, when you steal a financial empire, you should really double-check who signs the payroll of your private army,” she whispered, her gravelly voice slicing through the deadly silence.
She turned her back on him, facing the captive audience of trapped billionaires, politicians, and socialites.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the true heiress announced, her eyes gleaming with absolute, terrifying authority. “The royal auction is canceled. Tonight, we are hosting a tribunal.”