A glass dropped on the marble floor near the bar, shattering into pieces.

The silence in the ballroom became heavy and absolute.

Grant looked up, his smile freezing as he realized his voice had echoed into every corner of the room.

Caleb Rhodes set his champagne glass down with a hard, deliberate click.

I stood up from table four.

My cream-colored heels clicked on the polished floor as I walked toward the stage.

Grant tried to step in front of the podium, his face turning a mottled red under the stage lights.

“Vivian, there is a technical issue with the sound,” Grant said, his hand gripping the edge of the wood so hard his knuckles turned white.

“The only issue, Grant, is that you are speaking on property that does not belong to you,” I said.

I reached the stage and took the spare microphone from the stand.

“The Maribel is built on forty acres of prime coastal land,” I told the crowd.

“Whitmore Development has spent millions on grading and marketing.”

I turned to look directly at Caleb Rhodes.

“But the land itself was never owned by Grant’s company,” I said.

“It is held entirely by my mother’s private trust.”

“The trust I control.”

Lila’s face went pale under her heavy bronzer, and she took a step back from the podium.

Grant took a step toward me, his chest rising and falling quickly.

“That is an administrative detail, Vivian,” Grant said, his voice shaking. “Our attorneys cleared the deed transfer weeks ago.”

At table four, Diane Cho opened her laptop.

The projection screen behind Grant flickered, cutting off the promotional video of the harbor, and a new document appeared.

The document on the eighty-foot screen was a deed of transfer for the Harbor Point parcel.

At the bottom of the page, two signatures were illuminated in high-definition blue light.