“Helping you spend $10 million of Victoria’s money?” Eleanor snapped. She might have been a snob, but she wasn’t a fool. She knew where the Pierce family’s lifestyle came from. If I cut them off, their prestigious world would vanish in a puff of unpaid country club dues. She turned her venom on Chloe. “And you. You thought you could slide into a life built by a Sterling? You look like a cheap imitation of a socialite.”
The Liquidation
Chloe burst into tears—the practiced, beautiful tears of a woman who has always used them as a weapon. “Alexander, you told me she didn’t care! You said the marriage was just a business arrangement!”
“It is a business arrangement,” I corrected her, stepping down from the first stair. “And in business, when a partner embezzles funds, we don’t just fire them. We liquidate them.”
I pulled a folder from my designer handbag and handed it to Richard.
“Inside you’ll find the divorce papers I filed this morning. Also, a comprehensive list of the assets Alexander has siphoned off over the last two years. He didn’t just buy this house, Richard. He’s been ‘investing’ in Chloe’s brother’s failed tech startup and a boutique she owns in Soho. All with Sterling money.”
Richard flipped through the pages, his face hardening with every second. He looked at his son with pure loathing. “You stole from the woman who saved our family firm? You idiot. You arrogant, short-sighted idiot.”
“Victoria, please,” Alexander pleaded, reaching for my arm. I stepped back, my expression freezing into a mask of professional indifference.
“Don’t. You’ve spent eight years thinking I was the ‘quiet’ wife. You thought my silence was submissiveness. It wasn’t. It was observation. I was waiting to see if you were a man of character or just a man of opportunity. You’ve given me my answer.”
I turned to Chloe, who was now leaning against the wall, her ‘newlywed’ fantasy crumbling into dust.
“As for you, Miss Reynolds. Since you’re so fond of this house, I have some news. The bank has already initiated a freeze on the property. By five p.m. today, the locks will be changed. Anything you brought here—the clothes, the jewelry, the designer bags—they are technically purchased with stolen marital funds. They stay with the house. They will be auctioned off, and the proceeds will go to a charity for displaced women.”
The Eviction of a Mistress
“You can’t do that!” Chloe screamed.
“I can. And I did.” I looked at my watch. “In fact, the movers are outside right now. Not to move you in, but to move the furniture out. I’m selling the house to a developer who plans to turn it into a community park. I think it’ll be a lovely legacy for the Pierce name, don’t you, Eleanor?”
Eleanor didn’t even look at her son. She walked over to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t quite an apology, but it was an acknowledgment of power. “He’s a fool, Victoria. I won’t stand in your way.”
