Chapter 7 - The Eviction
Forty-eight hours after the boardroom coup, the final hammer fell on the Sterling Manor.
It was a bitter, freezing Wednesday morning. A moving truck sat idling at the foot of the circular driveway, accompanied by two sheriff’s deputies and a team of private bailiffs holding clipboards.
Margaret stood in the grand foyer, leaning heavily on a cane, wrapped in a fur coat that looked suddenly ridiculous against the backdrop of stripped walls and packed cardboard boxes. The heavy crystal chandeliers were being wrapped in protective foam by movers hired by the Vance Trust.
"You can't take the family portraits!" Margaret shrieked, pointing her trembling cane at a mover who was carefully unhooking an oil painting of Richard’s grandfather from above the mantelpiece. "That is Sterling heritage! That belonged to my late husband!"
"The painting was purchased at Sotheby’s four years ago using funds from the Vance Estate to pay off your late husband's tax liens, Mrs. Sterling," the head bailiff said flatly, checking off an item on his digital tablet. "It is legally the property of Victoria Vance. Move aside, please."
Chloe sat on the bottom step of the grand staircase, sobbing into her hands. Her phone was completely dead—cut off after the provider suspended the corporate family plan. Her boutique in Soho had been padlocked that morning by city marshals for unpaid rent and pending fraud investigations.
"Where are we supposed to go, Mom?" Chloe cried, looking up at Margaret with red, swollen eyes. "My landlord evicted me! My car was repossessed two hours ago! Richard isn't answering his phone! Where are we going to sleep tonight?!"
"Richard will fix this!" Margaret insisted, though her voice lacked any conviction, wavering with senile desperation. "He is meeting with investors! He will buy us an apartment on the Upper East Side! We are Sterlings! We do not live on the street!"
Just then, the front doors opened.
Richard walked in. But it wasn't the Richard they knew.
He wasn't wearing his bespoke Italian suit. He wore a rumpled wool coat, his hair unwashed, his tie crooked. He carried a single cardboard box containing the few personal items security had allowed him to take from his corporate office.
"Richard!" Margaret gasped, limping toward him with outstretched arms. "Thank God you're here! Tell these men to stop! Tell them who we are!"
Richard stopped in the middle of the empty foyer. He looked at his mother, his expression blank, dead, and utterly hollow.
"It’s over, Mom," Richard whispered.
Margaret froze. "What do you mean, it's over?"
"The district attorney formally unsealed the indictment an hour ago," Richard said, his voice flat, drained of all life. "Six counts of wire fraud. Four counts of embezzlement. Marcus Vance handed over five years of financial audits. They froze all my personal accounts. Every single one."
"What about the Harrison merger?" Chloe shrieked, jumping up from the stairs. "What about our backup trust?!"
Richard let out a dry, manic laugh that sounded closer to a sob. "There is no backup trust, Chloe! Victoria was the trust! Every dollar we spent for the last seven years came from her family! The cars, this house, your boutique, the country club, the summer trips to Monaco—all of it was Victoria’s money! We were living in a castle built on her credit, and you two idiots decided to spit in her face and rip her daughter's dress off!"
"How dare you speak to me like that!" Margaret shouted, raising her cane. "I am your mother! I did everything for you! I tried to secure that dress for Bella so our family looked unified!"
"For Bella?!" Richard roared, finally snapping, his voice shaking the empty walls. "Bella has a closet full of clothes! You did it because you hated Victoria! You hated that she was richer than us, smarter than us, and better than us! You wanted to humiliate her, and instead, you destroyed my life!"
"Sir," the sheriff’s deputy interrupted, stepping forward firmly. "Your forty-eight-hour eviction window expired at noon. You, your mother, and your sister need to vacate the premises immediately. Any items left behind will be placed in county storage at your expense."
"Vacate?!" Margaret gasped, clutching her chest. "Where?! I am an old woman! I have heart conditions! You cannot throw me into the snow!"
"You should have thought about that before you put your hands on a child, ma'am," the deputy replied without an ounce of sympathy. "Now, please. Walk out, or we will escort you out in restraints."
Margaret looked around the grand mansion—the home she had ruled like an untouchable queen for thirty years. The walls were bare. The rugs were rolled up. The warmth was gone.
Broken and trembling, the once-mighty Margaret Sterling was forced down the front stone steps, leaning on her cheap aluminum cane, clutching a single plastic shopping bag containing her medications and a few toiletries.
Chloe followed behind, sobbing hysterically into her scarf, dragging one small suitcase through the dirty slush.
May you like
At the end of the driveway, there was no limousine waiting. No town car. Only a yellow city taxi that Richard had barely scraped together twenty dollars in cash to hail.
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