Chapter 5 - Eviction on Isla de la Luna
The sun was sinking below the horizon, painting the Caribbean sky in violent shades of bruised purple and bleeding orange.
On the north dock of Isla de la Luna, the scene looked less like a high-society wedding and more like the evacuation of a fallen embassy.
Two hundred guests in bespoke tuxedos, silk gowns, and high-end designer linen were huddled together on the wooden planks, swatting at sand gnats in the humid, dead air. The island’s central air conditioning had been dead for two hours. The ice machines had melted. The imported caviar was turning warm and sour in the silver bowls sitting on the abandoned buffet tables.
“This is an outrage!” Arthur Carter was screaming, his face purple, his collar unbuttoned and dripping with sweat. He was waving a multi-page legal document in front of Marcus Vance’s impassive face. “My daughter is a guest of honor! We are the Carter family! You cannot evict us from an island where our name is on the welcome brochure!”
Marcus stood on the raised gangway of the private dock, flanked by four Vance Security operatives wearing black tactical plate carriers. His arms were folded behind his back, his expression as unyielding as the granite cliffs of the island.
“Mr. Carter,” Marcus said calmly. “The welcome brochure you are referencing was printed at your own expense at a commercial print shop in Miami. It holds no legal standing on this sovereign private property.”
“Where are the boats?” Vanessa shrieked.
She was still wearing the wedding dress. The train had been torn off roughly at the knees—evidently with a pair of kitchen scissors from the catering pavilion—leaving a jagged, fraying hem that exposed her mud-caked calves and scuffed heels. Her foundation had melted into streaks of ivory grease running down her neck. Her mascara was smeared beneath her eyes like war paint.
“Where are the Delacroix yachts?” she yelled, turning on Julian, who was sitting on an overturned Pelican luggage case, head in his hands. “Julian! Tell this servant to bring the yachts around! I am not standing out here with the mosquitoes! Look at my hair! Look at what this humidity is doing to me!”
“Vanessa, shut up,” Julian muttered, not looking up.
Vanessa froze. Her mouth dropped open in absolute disbelief. “What did you just say to me?”
“I said shut up!” Julian snapped, lifting his head. His eyes were bloodshot, his tuxedo jacket discarded on the ground, his white shirt stained with sweat and dirt. “My father is currently on the phone with our family trust attorneys. The SEC is already reviewing our domestic accounts because of the fraudulent shell company I used to book this venue! Do you understand what that means? We don't have yachts! The yachts were chartered under a corporate line of credit that Rachel Carter just froze!”
A suffocating silence fell over the gathered guests.
Eleanor, who was fanning herself with a ruined silk program, stumbled forward. “Julian... sweetheart, what are you saying? Your father has hundreds of millions. The Delacroix name—”
“The Delacroix name is tied up in commercial real estate that is seventy percent leveraged!” Richard Delacroix roared, walking toward them from the edge of the dock.
The older man had aged ten years in the span of three hours. His tie was gone, his hair was disheveled, and his hands were trembling as he gripped his smartphone.
“Richard,” Arthur said, trying to force an authoritative smile. “Richard, let’s be reasonable here. Rachel is my daughter. She’s acting out. She’s always had this hysterical, jealous streak because Vanessa was the prettier one, the more talented one. Once she calms down, I will speak to her. She will sign the waivers. She will cover the damages.”
Richard Delacroix stopped three inches from Arthur Carter’s face.
The silence on the dock was so absolute that the gentle lap of the waves against the pylons sounded like pistol shots.
“Your daughter,” Richard said, his voice shaking with a rage so profound it turned his lips white, “owns forty-two percent of the mezzanine debt on my firm’s primary office park in Boston. Did you know that, Arthur?”
Arthur blinked. “What?”
“I didn't know it,” Richard hissed, his spittle landing on Arthur’s cheek. “I didn't know it because Vance-Carter Global operates through thirty-eight institutional holding entities! I didn't know that the woman you called your ‘worthless, plain daughter’ was the single largest private creditor to my family’s investment fund! And do you know what her legal counsel just delivered to my firm twenty minutes ago?”
Richard thrust a tablet into Arthur’s chest.
“An immediate notice of default,” Richard snarled. “Due to the criminal charges being filed against Julian for corporate fraud and falsifying financial guarantees for this wedding, she has called the entire ninety-million-dollar loan due within forty-eight hours. My company is bankrupt, Arthur. By Tuesday morning, my family will be in federal receivership.”
Eleanor let out a sharp, choked gasp, clutching her throat. “No... no, that’s impossible. Rachel doesn't have that kind of money. She was a receptionist! She did computer work! She lived in that terrible duplex in Tampa!”
“She built an international logistics network while you were spending her college fund on Vanessa’s failed pageants!” Richard screamed.
He turned toward Vanessa, his aristocratic features twisted in pure disgust.
“And you,” Richard said, pointing a finger at the woman who was supposed to become his daughter-in-law. “You threw her child off a balcony. In front of forty of my most important business partners. In front of three federal judges who were sitting in the fourth row. My son is not marrying you. The ceremony is void. If you ever come within a hundred yards of my family again, I will personally fund the prosecution that puts you in a state penitentiary.”
“Julian!” Vanessa shrieked, reaching for her fiancé’s hand. “Julian, don't let him talk to me like this! We love each other! We have a life planned!”
Julian stood up, looked at Vanessa’s outstretched, trembling hand, and stepped back.
He looked down at her mud-stained dress, her smeared makeup, her frantic, narcissistic eyes.
“Get away from me, Vanessa,” Julian said quietly. “You’re a parasite. Your whole family is a pack of parasites.”
He turned and walked toward the far end of the dock, where a commercial water taxi—a battered, twin-engine ferry smelling of diesel and old fish—was finally chugging into the harbor under the dim glare of the island’s emergency solar floodlights.
Marcus Vance stepped forward, checking his platinum wristwatch.
“Thirty minutes have expired,” Marcus announced. His voice was carried across the dock by the portable PA system his men had set up. “The private airspace and maritime zone of Isla de la Luna are now closed to all unauthorized personnel. Any individual remaining on the island after the ferry departs will be detained under federal maritime trespass laws and handed over to the Bahamian Defence Force.”
“You can’t leave us here!” Eleanor wailed, her heels catching in the dock slats as she lunged toward the gangway. “We don't have tickets for that public boat! Look at that boat! It doesn't even have air conditioning! There are chickens on that boat!”
“The commercial ferry fare is forty-five dollars per passenger, cash only,” Marcus said without blinking. “I suggest you pool your resources. Because the Vance-Carter staff is boarding the security skiffs now. And the island’s exterior floodlights will be powered down in precisely four minutes.”
“Marcus!” Arthur roared, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his gold American Express card. “Charge it! Charge whatever you want! Take us back on the helicopter!”
Marcus didn't even look at the card.
He turned his back on the Carter family, walked down the gangway toward the waiting 40-foot midnight-express interceptor boat, and stepped aboard.
Behind him, with a massive, resonant *chunk*, the main breaker for the dock was tripped.
The floodlights died.
The north marina was plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness, save for the sickly yellow headlights of the commercial water taxi sputtering twenty yards away in the oily water.
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In the dark, Vanessa began to scream. A high, ragged, terrified sound that was quickly drowned out by the roar of the interceptor’s triple outboards as Marcus Vance left them behind in the night.
***
