nucmednet Chapter 361
Chapter 361
His voice hardened further."I want you to hear me clearly, Richard. I would rather lose my life than stand by and watch my family be humiliated and disgraced in front of a guest of that caliber. I would give everything before I allowed something like that to happen. Everything. So I want you to stop worrying about that aspect and focus on what you need to do on your end."
The authority in his father’s voice was absolute and unquestionable as he delivered his final declaration.
"As for my end - I am going to double the security at that venue. And if double is not enough, I will triple it without hesitation. And if triple still leaves me with even the smallest margin of doubt, I will quadruple it without blinking an eye, because nothing - absolutely nothing - is going to go wrong on that day."
A brief pause. "And I want every single invitation card scanned, verified, and cross-referenced at every point of entry, with one exception and one exception only - my special guest of honor’s invitation will be handled personally and exclusively by me, and that is non-negotiable."
There was a brief but powerful pause on the other end of the line, and when Richard’s father spoke again, his voice had dropped to something quieter but infinitely more intense - the kind of quiet that was somehow louder than shouting.
"Disgrace," his father said the word slowly, almost tasting it, as though it were something deeply bitter and utterly foreign to him. "Disgrace will never - and I mean never - befall upon this family on that day or on any other day while I still draw breath. That is not something I am willing to even entertain as a possibility."
At that moment, having absorbed every single word his father had just declared with such unwavering conviction and authority, Richard nodded his head slowly and deliberately, feeling the tension that had been sitting across his shoulders since the beginning of the conversation begin to ease just slightly.
"Well, that is really, really good to hear, Father," Richard said, his voice carrying genuine relief and satisfaction.
"That is exactly, precisely what I needed to hear from you tonight, because I want you to understand how serious this situation actually is." He exhaled steadily before continuing. "This person has literally, openly bragged to our faces that she is going to show up at this wedding regardless of what we do or say about it. She made it very clear that she intends to be there and that there is nothing we can possibly do to prevent it."
Richard’s jaw tightened slightly at the memory.
"And it wasn’t just her either - even her companion was sitting there with the same arrogant confidence, the same bragging, as though the whole thing was already settled in their favor and we were simply too foolish to realize it yet."
He shook his head. "So you can understand why I needed to make sure that our security arrangements were going to be completely airtight and completely uncompromising."
He glanced briefly at Penelope beside him before returning his focus to the road ahead.
"But now that you are back in the country, and now that you are clearly very much invested and engaged in making sure everything goes perfectly - especially given the extraordinary news you’ve just shared with me about our special guest - I think I can breathe a little easier about this particular aspect of things."
Richard’s voice settled into something more relaxed and confident.
"I’m going to leave the entire security protocol, all of the arrangements, all of the logistics around guest verification and perimeter management completely in your hands, Father. I genuinely have nothing to worry about when it comes to that side of things, and I know that without any doubt."
On the other end of the line, his father made a sound of immediate and absolute affirmation.
"No problem at all, son. No problem whatsoever," the older man said firmly, his voice carrying that characteristic combination of warmth and iron that Richard had grown up with and deeply respected. "You have my word that this is completely taken care of from my end."
There was a brief pause, and then Richard’s father’s voice shifted into something more tactical and precise, the tone of a man who was already mentally drawing up plans and issuing orders in his head even as he spoke.
"Actually, Richard, I want to suggest something to you, and I don’t just mean suggest it as something to think about - I mean this is something we should move on immediately." His father’s voice was direct and purposeful. "If you have this person’s photograph, or if you can get hold of a clear picture of them, I want you to send it directly to me as soon as humanly possible."
Richard listened carefully.
"Because here is what I am thinking," his father continued, laying out his reasoning with the calm precision of someone who had handled complicated and sensitive situations many times before.
"Why should we wait until the day of the wedding to deal with this problem? Why should we sit back and allow this person to spend the days leading up to the wedding freely making their plans and preparing their schemes and building their confidence?" There was a deliberate pause.
"If we have their picture, we can identify them well in advance. And if we can identify them well in advance, we can pick them up quietly, detain them discreetly before the wedding day even arrives, and simply keep them detained until the entire event is over and done with before releasing them."
He let the elegance of the solution hang in the air for a moment.
"That way, there is no scene at the entrance. There is no embarrassing confrontation outside the venue. There is no disruption of any kind on the day itself. The problem is neutralized cleanly and quietly before it ever gets the chance to become a problem at all. No nuisance committed, no drama created, no stain on the occasion whatsoever."
His father’s voice was resolute. "This is not something I am merely suggesting we consider, Richard. This is something we should be moving on immediately."