Chapter 4 - The Seafood Buffet Crash
Elena Vance did not flinch, blink, or take half a step backward as Garrett's heavy hand lunged forward.
Before his fingers could even graze Toby's ruined vest, Elena moved with the explosive speed of a trained martial artist.
Her left hand shot out like lightning, intercepting Garrett’s wrist mid-air with an iron grip.
She twisted his wrist outward, leveraging his own heavy, forward momentum against his intoxicated balance.
Garrett let out a startled yelp of pain as his joint locked, his eyes widening in pure, disbelieving shock.
Simultaneously, Elena drove the solid palm of her right hand directly into the center of Garrett’s chest.
It was not a gentle shove; it was a devastating, mechanically perfect kinetic strike honed through years of self-defense training.
The impact cracked against Garrett’s sternum, driving all the air from his privileged lungs with a wet wheeze.
Garrett’s expensive leather loafers completely lost traction on the slippery, ice-covered flagstones beneath him.
His legs flailed wildly in the air as his two-hundred-pound frame was launched violently backward across the terrace.
He flew five full feet through the air before colliding catastrophically with the centerpiece of the evening:
The eighty-thousand-dollar imported ice-sculpture seafood buffet tower.
The sound of the impact was like a bomb detonating inside an upscale dining room.
The massive, carved ice swan shattered instantly into heavy, jagged boulders of frozen shrapnel.
Three hundred pounds of crushed ice, massive King crab legs, jumbo gulf shrimp, and raw oysters collapsed in an avalanche.
A gigantic, five-foot silver platter laden with crushed ice and cocktail sauce flipped into the air.
Garrett crashed flat onto his back amidst the freezing carnage, silver platters clattering deafeningly against his skull.
A tidal wave of red cocktail sauce, melting slush, and cracked crab shells smothered his designer tuxedo.
He lay there, pinned beneath the wreckage of the buffet, groaning like a wounded animal in a swamp of seafood.
The entire terrace plunged into a state of paralyzed, mouth-gaping horror.
Not a single person in the crowd breathed; not a single glass clinked; even the ocean waves seemed to pause.
A resort employee had just physically demolished the heir to the multi-billion-dollar Sterling fortune.
Victoria Sterling stood completely motionless for three agonizing seconds, her manicured mouth hanging wide open.
Then, the reality of the absolute public humiliation of her precious son penetrated her shock.
A shrill, banshee-like shriek tore from Victoria's throat, shattering the silence with ear-splitting fury.
"GARRETT! OH MY GOD, GARRETT!" she screamed, lifting her emerald skirts and stumbling through the puddle of ice.
She dropped to her knees beside the ruined seafood tower, her emerald gown soaking in cocktail sauce and fish water.
"You psycho! You crazy bitch! You tried to kill my son!" Victoria screeched, pointing a trembling finger at Elena.
Garrett coughed weakly, spitting out a raw oyster and clutching his bruised ribs with a pitiful whimper.
"Mom... she broke my wrist... she pushed me..." Garrett whined, his tough-guy bravado entirely vanished.
Elena stood tall amidst the chaos, her charcoal suit immaculate, her breathing steady, and her posture unyielding.
She had not moved an inch from where she had struck him down.
She adjusted the cuffs of her jacket with chilling, calculated indifference, looking down at them as if they were vermin.
"Your son initiated an unprovoked physical assault against my staff on my property," Elena stated clearly.
Her voice was amplified by the terrace architecture, ringing in the ears of every single guest in attendance.
"Under resort policy and local penal law, reasonable physical force was utilized to neutralize an immediate threat."
"Threat?! You assaulted the heir to Sterling Global!" Victoria shrieked, scrambling back to her feet with murderous eyes.
Victoria charged straight toward Elena, her diamond rings clenched into fists, ready to claw at the director's face.
"I will destroy you! I will have you stripped of everything you own and thrown into a concrete cell for the rest of your life!"
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Victoria lunged forward, completely blinded by rage, convinced her family name gave her legal immunity.
She made the fatal mistake of assuming that the woman standing before her was merely a replaceable hotel worker.
