Chapter 5 - The Fall of the Queen
The defeat in court broke Eleanor Montgomery’s remaining defenses.
Within forty-eight hours of the ruling, the financial fallout hit her like an avalanche. Without her position on the board of Montgomery Enterprises, her personal creditors panicked. The banks called in the massive loans she had taken out using her estate as collateral.
The proud matriarch who had spent forty years looking down on Chicago society was completely, irrevocably bankrupt.
I stood on the stone terrace of the Lake Geneva estate three weeks later. The property had been put up for emergency bank auction to cover Eleanor’s mountain of debt and illegal siphoning liabilities.
I had bought it. Every single acre.
The white roses from the failed wedding had been cleared away. The lawn was lush, green, and quiet.
A moving truck was parked near the grand entrance. Two movers were carrying out the last of Eleanor’s personal trunks under the watchful eye of my security team.
Eleanor walked out of the double grand doors for the very last time. She was wearing a simple coat, her hair unstyled, looking fragile and defeated. The arrogance that had defined her for decades had vanished, replaced by a hollow, bitter grief.
She froze when she saw me standing near the edge of the fountain.
"You took everything," Eleanor whispered, her voice rasping in the cool afternoon breeze. "My company. My son. My home."
"You lost them yourself, Eleanor," I said calmly, taking a step toward her. "You thought power was built on tearing other people down. You thought you could throw me away like trash because I didn't come from your world. But you forgot one simple thing."
Eleanor glared at me, her lower lip trembling. "What?"
"A mother will tear down mountains for her children," I said softly. "You used your son as a puppet to feed your vanity. I built an empire to protect mine. That is why I am standing here, and that is why you are leaving."
Eleanor opened her mouth to spit another venomous reply, but the words died in her throat. She looked around at the estate—the sweeping lake views, the grand stone pillars, the historic arches—and realized that it all belonged to the woman she had once told, 'You were never one of us.'
May you like
Without another word, Eleanor turned and walked down the drive, carrying her single small handbag, stepping into a plain taxicab waiting at the front gates.
She left behind the dynasty she had destroyed.
