Chapter 5 - The Family Council
The penthouse of the Sterling family manor felt like a funeral home that evening. The crystal chandeliers that usually blazed with warm light were half-dimmed, casting long, mournful shadows across the Persian carpets and oil paintings of ancestors who had actually built the family's once-proud reputation.
My mother was waiting in the drawing room when the front door opened. She had spent the entire afternoon crying, her mascara staining a linen handkerchief, but the moment she saw my father walk in with a battered banker's box filled with his personal desk items, she leaped to her feet.
""Arthur! What happened at the office?"" she wailed, rushing toward him. ""The news channels are saying you resigned! They’re saying Mary is taking over the firm! Tell me it's a terrible rumor! Tell me our country club membership isn't being frozen!""
My father didn't speak. He walked past her as if he were an empty ghost, setting the cardboard box down onto an antique mahogany credenza with a hollow thud.
Behind him, Alyssa stormed into the room, throwing her five-thousand-dollar designer handbag onto the sofa. ""It's true, Mom! She took everything! That ungrateful little snake married Wade Larkin in secret just so she could ambush us! She had security escort me out of my own office! Two security guards carried my boxes to the curb while the interns took pictures on their phones!""
""Where is she?"" my mother shrieked, clutching her throat. ""How dare she do this to her own flesh and blood! After everything we gave her! She was always so quiet, so plain... I knew she harbored a dark, jealous heart toward Alyssa, but to destroy our entire family over a petty grudge?""
The front door clicked shut again.
I stepped into the grand foyer, accompanied by Wade. I had changed out of my business suit into a simple cashmere sweater and jeans, but the presence of the man standing beside me seemed to suck all the air out of the grand estate.
""It wasn't a petty grudge, Mother,"" I said, walking into the drawing room with my hands tucked casually into my pockets. ""It was justice.""
My mother spun around, her eyes blazing with theatrical fury. ""You wicked girl! You march in here like an invading conqueror after humiliating your sister in front of the entire city? Do you have any idea how much Alyssa suffered last night? Her fiancé broke off their arrangement this morning because of the scandal!""
""Her arrangement?"" I asked, raising an eyebrow with cold amusement. ""You mean the junior senator's son she was stringing along while openly throwing herself at my husband? If he had any sense, he dodged a bullet.""
""He was supposed to be mine!"" Alyssa screamed, lunging toward me with her face twisted in rage. ""Wade Larkin was supposed to invest in my portfolio! You were never meant to be with someone like him! Look at you! You spend all your time hidden behind computer screens, smelling like blueprint ink and cheap coffee! You don't know how to host a dinner party, you don't know how to dress, you're nothing without my shine!""
Wade stepped forward instantly, his towering presence forcing Alyssa to stumble back several paces. His eyes were cold enough to freeze water.
""Your shine, Alyssa, was entirely stolen,"" Wade said, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrifying timber that commanded corporate empires. ""For five months, I watched Mary stay up until three in the morning fixing your mathematical errors on the city harbor bridge project. I watched her redesign the seismic supports you forgot to include because you were too busy taking selfies in high-visibility vests for your Instagram followers. If the city had built your original plans, seventy people would have plummeted into the river on opening day.""
Alyssa gasped, clutching her chest, looking desperately at our parents. ""He's lying! Daddy, tell him he's lying!""
My father stood by the credenza, his shoulders slumped, looking twenty years older. He didn't raise his eyes from the floor. ""He isn't lying, Alyssa. The state board called me an hour ago. They've initiated a license fraud investigation against you. You never passed the certification, did you? You paid a proctor in Philadelphia to forge your credentials.""
The silence that followed was suffocating.
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My mother staggered backward, collapsing onto the velvet sofa with a choked sob. ""No... not my Alyssa. Not my perfect girl...""
""The perfect girl was a fraud from top to bottom, Mother,"" I said, stepping closer to them. ""And tomorrow morning, the moving trucks will be outside this house. The deed to this property has been transferred to Larkin Capital to settle Father's offshore margin debt. You have until five o'clock tomorrow evening to pack your personal clothes and vacate.""
