Chapter 6 - The Fall of Evelyn
The next thirty minutes descended into utter chaos.
Two uniformed deputies, accompanied by a detective in a sharp grey suit, walked into the foyer. Standing beside them was Detective Vance—no relation to us—who held a sealed manila envelope containing the formal arrest warrants issued early that morning based on the digital evidence Mariana and my legal team had submitted simultaneously.
Chloe immediately collapsed into tears, throwing herself onto the sofa and blubbering about how she was just following her mother's instructions.
"I didn't know!" Chloe sobbed as a deputy stepped forward to secure her arms behind her back. "Julian, please! I'm your sister! Mom told me you approved all of it! She said you wanted to get rid of Mariana!"
"You were living in my bedroom, wearing her clothes, and laughing on the phone about taking over our life, Chloe," I said coldly, standing beside Mariana as the deputy escorted my sobbing sister toward the door. "You knew exactly what you were doing."
Evelyn, however, did not go quietly.
As the detective approached her, her terror warped into unbridled, ugly rage. She whipped around to face Mariana, her face contorted with venom. "You ungrateful little street rat! I took you into this family! My son made you who you are! Without the Vance name, you are nothing!"
"The Vance name didn't buy this property, Evelyn," Mariana replied, her voice remaining entirely level, though I could feel her body trembling slightly against mine. "And as for taking me in... you spent nine years treating me like an inconvenient accessory until you realized you could use me to fund your daughter's lavish lifestyle."
"Julian!" Evelyn shrieked, turning her fury toward me as the deputy placed handcuffs around her wrists. "Are you really going to let them carry your mother out of your house in handcuffs?! After everything I gave up to raise you?!"
I looked at the woman who had brought me into the world. For years, I had turned a blind eye to her subtle manipulations, her passive-aggressive remarks about Mariana, her constant demands for financial support. I had excused it as maternal protectiveness. I had excused it as family loyalty.
"You didn't raise me to be a thief, Mother," I said, my voice heavy with a mix of disgust and deep sorrow. "And you didn't give up anything. You spent the last five months starving my wife, humiliating her, and trying to steal her home. You aren't being dragged out of my house. You're being dragged out of her house."
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"You'll regret this!" Evelyn screamed, her heels dragging against the polished hardwood floor as the officers escorted her toward the grand entrance. "You hear me, Julian?! She tricked you! She set us up!"
Her screams echoed down the driveway until the heavy front doors finally clicked shut, leaving the grand house in total, suffocating silence.
