Chapter 4 - The Red Text on the Screen
The sudden shift in the teleprompter’s glow washed a sickly crimson light over Victoria’s carefully preserved features. For one agonizing second, her practiced smile remained frozen on her face while her brain processed the blazing words scrolling onto the glass monitor inches from her eyes.
AUDIT FILE 884-B: PEDIATRIC EMERGENCY RELIEF DIVERSION TO OFFSHORE ACCOUNT VANCE-HOLDINGS.
The applause in the grand ballroom died down instantly, replaced by an abrupt, suffocating silence. Victoria stopped mid-sentence, her mouth slightly open, the red lipstick stark against her suddenly bloodless lips. She blinked hard, thinking it was a harmless technical glitch, but the text remained locked in place, glaring down at the three hundred influential guests sitting below the stage.
Backstage, Marcus grabbed the edge of a heavy canvas flat, his knuckles scraping against the wood as he gasped for air.
"What did you do?" Marcus hissed at Clara, his voice trembling with a mixture of terror and fury. "You bypassed the local network? That's federal property!"
Clara didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes locked on the monitor, watching Victoria’s micro-expressions shift from confusion to raw, unadulterated panic.
"I didn't hack anything, Mr. Vance," Clara replied quietly, her voice smooth and devoid of fear. "I simply restored the system to the backup server that your wife tried to wipe clean at 4:00 PM today. Honesty has a funny way of finding its own outlet."
On stage, Victoria’s composure fractured. The haughty, aggressive socialite who had slapped a twenty-year-old waitress twenty minutes earlier vanished, replaced by a cornered animal realizing the trap had snapped shut. She turned her head sharply toward the wings, her dark eyes scanning the darkness until they found Clara standing beside the monitor.
Victoria’s breath hitched. Through the heavy amplification of her lapel microphone, the sharp intake of air sounded like a gale-force wind across the hall's sound system.
"Ladies... ladies and gentlemen," Victoria stammered, her rich, commanding voice cracking for the first time in twenty years of public speaking. "A technical... a malicious prank. Please disregard the screen. Our IT department is addressing—"
Before she could finish the sentence, a second document flashed on the giant projection screen behind her: a signed bank authorization form bearing her own signature, transferring funds from the charity account to a private Cayman Islands holding company owned exclusively by Victoria and Marcus Vance.
Whispers erupted through the ballroom like dry brushfire. Flashbulbs from the press gallery began firing in a rapid, staccato rhythm, illuminating Victoria’s panicked expression from a dozen different angles.
In the front row, the city’s district attorney, who had been sitting directly beside the empty table four that Victoria had tried to commandeer earlier, slowly stood up. His face was carved from stone as he adjusted his jacket and pulled out his phone, tapping the screen with deliberate, unhurried movements.
Victoria gripped the edges of the mahogany podium so hard her fingers turned white. She looked out at the sea of shocked faces, then back toward the wings where Clara stood holding the black tray like a shield.
"Cut the feed!" Victoria screamed into the live microphone, her voice finally breaking into a sharp, ugly shriek that shattered the last illusion of her aristocratic dignity. "Cut the power right now!"
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The stage manager frantically lunged for the master breaker switch on the wall, but as his hand reached out, a heavy shadow fell across the doorway behind him, blocking his path completely.
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