Chapter 3 - CALLING THE AUTHORITIES
Instead of cowering, Clara tapped the screen of her black smartphone once more, pressing three digits that made the room gasp.
"911, what is your emergency?" a dispatcher's voice crackled softly through the smartphone speaker.
"I have just been physically assaulted at a private residence in East Hampton," Clara stated clearly, staring directly into Eleanor's bulging eyes.
Eleanor gasped, taking a sharp step back as her wealthy inner circle began whispering frantically among themselves.
"Are you insane?!" Eleanor shrieked, her aristocratic composure completely shattering into frantic panic. "You are calling the police to my home?!"
"You tore my earlobe in front of fifty witnesses, Eleanor," Clara replied smoothly, taking a linen napkin from the table to dab the blood.
A prominent Manhattan hedge fund manager in a charcoal suit stepped forward, trying to intervene. "Clara, let's handle this privately within the family—"
"Touch me and you'll be named as an accessory to assault," Clara warned without looking at him, her voice dripping with lethal authority.
The hedge fund manager froze, stepping back into the shadows of the ballroom as sirens began to wail faintly in the distance.
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Eleanor realized too late that the quiet, dutiful daughter-in-law she had tormented for five years was officially dead.
***
