Chapter 7 - THE SIX COUPLES UPSTAIRS
There had not been three prospective clients at the party.
There had been six.
Nora reconstructed the guest list by comparing Sienna’s invitations with security access records and vendor notes.
Three had already signed contracts.
Three others had been invited for private tours.
One of them, Madeline Choate, called Clara directly.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I feel ridiculous.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Sienna told us the property belonged to the Ward family.”
Clara looked around her kitchen.
“Technically I’m a Ward.”
Madeline gave an uncomfortable laugh.
“She made it sound like her brother’s company owned it.”
Clara stopped.
“What?”
“Some kind of family holding company.”
Julian was listening from the other side of the table.
His face hardened.
Madeline continued.
“She said her brother had given Vellum House limited exclusive access.”
Julian took notes.
Clara asked, “Did she put that in writing?”
“Not exactly.”
Of course not.
Sienna was reckless.
She was not stupid.
But she had repeated enough versions of the claim that clients reasonably believed it.
That evening Julian opened another security audio fragment.
Sienna and Evelyn again.
Evelyn:
“What if Clara comes upstairs?”
Sienna:
“She won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I showed her Julian’s text.”
Evelyn:
“You actually made one?”
Sienna laughed.
Clara stopped playback.
Julian did not.
“No.”
He pressed play.
Sienna continued:
“Relax. It looks exactly like his messages.”
Evelyn:
“Delete it afterward.”
Silence filled the kitchen.
Clara’s eyes stayed on Evelyn’s frozen image.
“She knew.”
Julian nodded.
His mother had not merely defended Sienna after discovering what happened.
She had participated before it.
Another recording revealed the reason Clara needed to remain downstairs.
Sienna:
“Once they see the terrace at night, nobody cares whose name is on the deed.”
Evelyn:
“Just get contracts signed. We’ll handle Julian and Clara later.”
Julian closed the app.
He looked physically ill.
Clara felt something unexpected.
Not triumph.
Not even rage.
Grief.
Evelyn had sat beside her in the hospital when Clara miscarried six years earlier.
She had brought soup when Clara’s father died.
She had once spent an entire weekend helping Clara strip wallpaper from the upstairs guest room.
People did not become strangers just because they betrayed you.
Sometimes they remained painfully recognizable.
Julian said, “I’m sorry.”
Clara shook her head.
“Don’t apologize for her.”
“I brought this into our house.”
“You brought your family.”
She looked at him.
“You didn’t tell them to do this.”
Julian’s eyes stayed down.
“I made it easy for them to believe I’d clean it up.”
Clara could not disagree.
That night, they made their first deliberate decision together.
Clara would contact all six prospective clients personally through Melissa.
Julian would remove Sienna and Evelyn from every discretionary financial account connected to him.
Not health insurance.
Not Evelyn’s agreed monthly retirement support.
No retaliation.
Just no more open access.
It was a boundary that would be difficult to undo.
At 9:14 p.m., the first response came from one of Sienna’s signed couples.
May you like
They wanted their $15,000 back within seven days.
Sienna had already spent most of it.
