Chapter 6 - The Aftermath at the Gates
Outside the grand gates of the estate, the autumn wind was bitter and unforgiving.
Derek and Lena stood shivering on the damp sidewalk beneath the flashing blue-and-red lights of a police cruiser that had arrived not for me, but for the unpaid taxi fare they had tried to use to escape when security threw them out without their wallets.
“This is all your fault!” Lena screamed, her pale pink dress stained with mud where she had tripped over the hem during the escort. She was holding one of the twins, who wouldn't stop crying, while a disgruntled cab driver yelled curses at them from his open window.
“My fault?” Derek snapped back, his face twisted in pure rage as he ripped off his ruined bow tie and threw it into the gutter. “You were the one who insisted on crashing the reception! You swore Evelyn wouldn't find out about the baby registry until the ink was dry!”
“I didn't know she had a secret clause in the family charter!” Lena shrieked, tears freezing on her cheeks. “You’re the heir! You were supposed to know everything about your own family's business!”
“I was the heir,” Derek muttered, his voice dropping into a hollow, defeated whisper as the reality of what he had lost finally crashed over him.
He looked down at his empty hands. No trust fund. No company shares. No luxury apartment in the city. No credit cards, no cars, and no social standing. In less than sixty minutes, his arrogance and greed had reduced him to a broke, disgraced outcast standing on a street corner in the freezing cold, saddled with a mistress he no longer loved and twins he couldn't afford to feed.
A black town car slowed down near the curb. Derek’s heart leapt for a second—thinking maybe his mother had reconsidered, maybe someone had come to rescue him.
The back window rolled down slowly.
It wasn't Evelyn. It was my father’s corporate lawyer, holding a manila envelope out of the window.
May you like
“Mr. Vaughn,” the lawyer said with chilling politeness. “Just a reminder from the board. All personal items left in the penthouse have been packed into storage lockers. You have exactly forty-eight hours to collect them before they are auctioned off to cover your outstanding debts.”
The window rolled back up with a soft, mechanical hum, and the town car sped away into the night, leaving Derek and Lena standing alone in the dark.
