Chapter 5 - The Final Strike
Gasps rippled through the gathered crowd of high-society elites. Flashbulbs from hidden paparazzi cameras began to pop around the edges of the ballroom like sudden lightning storms.
Eleanor let out a choked, hysterical sob, clutching her chest as she stumbled backward into a group of horrified socialites. "No... no, this can't be happening... we are the Vanderbilts! We built this city!"
"You didn't build anything," I said, stepping right up to Eleanor and looking down at her with cold, unyielding pity. "You inherited a name, and you spent your entire life using it to crush anyone you considered beneath you. Well, the bill has finally arrived."
Howard stared at me, his eyes bloodshot and pleading, stripped of all the arrogance that had defined him for decades. "Audrey... please. We're family. Terrence wouldn't want this—"
"Don't you ever mention Terrence’s name," I interrupted, my voice sharpening into a lethal blade that made Howard flinch. "You didn't mourn him. You celebrated his death because you thought it meant you could finally erase me from his life."
I turned my back on them, looking out over the stunned, silent crowd of guests who had spent years looking down their noses at me.
Julian stepped forward, offering me his arm. "Shall we go, Mrs. Vanderbilt? The board meeting at your new headquarters starts in twenty minutes."
"Lead the way, Julian," I said calmly.
As we began walking toward the grand brass doors, Chloe let out a frantic, broken wail, lunging forward past the marshals.
"You can't do this! You're a nobody! You're nothing without us!" Chloe screamed, her designer dress tangling around her ankles as she tripped and fell hard onto the polished marble floor.
I didn't even look back. I stepped past her sprawling form, out through the heavy doors, and into the cool Washington night air where my chauffeured Maybach waited with the engine running.
Just as I reached for the door handle, my phone buzzed in my clutch. I pulled it out and glanced at the screen.
It was an automated alert from my private security detail at the main Vanderbilt estate.
May you like
The eviction notice has been fully executed, the message read. The locks have been changed. And someone is currently waiting in your private study downstairs.
I paused, my hand hovering over the car door, as a cold, unfamiliar name flashed across my phone's secondary encrypted notification feed.
