Patricia: Charles! Get the lawyers on the phone right now!
Charles: Patricia? What's going on? The wedding should still be happening.
Patricia: My own son hit me! He slapped me across the face in front of two hundred people and threw me out!
Charles: He what?! Why would Marcus do something so insane?
Patricia: That girl tricked him! She staged that whole mud incident on her dress and blamed it on me!
Charles: Did she have any evidence?
Patricia: She found a piece of stationery... I don't know how she got it, but she showed it to him right at the altar!
Charles: Patricia, I told you to stay away from that venue today! If they find out about the estate trust, we are finished!
Patricia: I couldn't let her marry him, Charles! If they sign that marriage certificate, she gets legal access to the Sterling family account audit!
Charles: Did they sign it?
Patricia: Yes! They finished the ceremony while I was being humiliated in the parking lot!
Charles swore loudly over the phone speaker, the sound of papers rustling filling the background.
Charles: Listen to me carefully, Patricia. Drive straight to the downtown office. We have to transfer the trust funds before their lawyer files the marriage registry tomorrow morning.
Patricia: How much time do we have?
Charles: Less than twenty-four hours. If Marcus requests a bank statement, he'll see that five million dollars went missing last month.
Meanwhile, inside the church reception hall, Marcus and Elena stood near the head table. Sofia handed Marcus the wrinkled note from her clutch bag.
Marcus: Let me see this, Elena. What did you mean about the back of the note?
Elena: Turn it over, Marcus. Read the small print at the bottom.
Marcus flipped the paper over. Written in faint blue ink under his mother's monogram was a series of numbers and a bank routing code.
Marcus: Routing number... 04400039... that's the Sterling Family Trust account at First National Bank.
Elena: And look at the handwritten message right under it.
Marcus: 'Payable to Charles Vance upon final signature of estate transfer.' What is this?!
Elena: Your mother didn't write that note to mock me, Marcus. She wrote that note to her lawyer, Charles Vance, earlier today.
Marcus: Charles is my uncle's former attorney! Why is my mother writing notes to him about my trust fund?
Elena: Because whoever dragged my dress through the mud dropped her personal note from her pocket while doing it. She was holding this paper in her hand when she went into my dressing room.
Marcus: She didn't just try to ruin our wedding day... she was using the distraction to finalize a fraudulent transaction!
Elena: Exactly. When I saw the dress on the floor, I thought she was just being cruel. But when I picked up the veil, this paper was lying right next to the muddy shoes she left behind.
Marcus: My mother is trying to drain my late father's inheritance before I turn thirty next week.
Elena: How much is in that trust, Marcus?
Marcus: Twelve million dollars. Half of it belongs to me, and half was supposed to go to my sister's medical care fund.
Elena: Then we don't have time for a reception, Marcus. We need to go to the bank right now.