Chapter 8 - THE PUSH
Elena pulled her arm away.
“Do not touch me.”
Celeste laughed loudly enough for the surrounding guests.
“You walked into my party with accusations and now you’re pretending to be attacked.”
“I came to speak to my son.”
“You came because you cannot accept that he chose me.”
Elena looked toward the balcony.
Adrian was not there yet.
Celeste’s friends formed a half-circle.
One woman whispered that Elena looked unstable.
Another raised her phone.
Charles remained near the flowers, watching.
Celeste reached again for Elena’s purse.
The leather strap broke.
Documents scattered across the marble.
A tax notice landed near the fountain.
Charles stepped on it before anyone could read the name.
Elena bent to retrieve the pages.
Celeste kicked one beneath a table.
“You should leave.”
“Not without speaking to Adrian.”
“You think motherhood gives you permanent ownership of him.”
“No. I think love requires warning him when someone is lying.”
Celeste’s expression became vicious.
“Your cheap clothes ruin my aesthetic.”
Then she pushed.
Elena struck the fountain water.
The cold shock made her gasp.
For one second, no one moved.
Celeste lifted her chin, expecting laughter.
A few people obeyed.
Then the balcony doors opened.
Adrian appeared.
He took in the scene.
His mother in the water.
Celeste above her.
Charles standing on Elena’s documents.
Adrian walked down the stairs.
Celeste shifted instantly into the role of offended fiancée.
“She became aggressive.”
Adrian stepped into the fountain.
He wrapped Elena in his jacket.
“Did you slip?”
Elena looked at him.
This was the moment Celeste had tried to prevent.
“No.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
Elena touched his sleeve.
“My purse. The papers.”
Marcus Bell’s sedan had just arrived outside.
Adrian sent the message freezing the trust and ordering the audit.
Celeste assumed he was protecting public relations until the alerts reached her phone.
Then Adrian bent and retrieved the wet tax notice.
He read the company name.
Elena Ruiz Community Housing LLC.
His mother’s Social Security number appeared beneath it.
The loan balance was fourteen million dollars.
Adrian looked toward Charles.
“Why is my mother listed as guarantor?”
Charles removed his shoe from the other documents.
“It is a misunderstanding.”
Elena answered first.
“I never signed anything.”
A photographer’s flash illuminated Charles’s face.
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The engagement party had just become a financial crime scene.
👉 Adrian froze Celeste’s trust because of the assault, but the forged guarantee gave him a reason to investigate her entire family.
