Chapter 8 - Behind Closed Gilded Doors
For three seconds, the courtyard was so quiet that the only sound was the rustling of dry autumn leaves across the gravel driveway.
Julian looked down at the crumpled three-hundred-dollar check lying between his shoes. His face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated humiliation. The movers watched in stunned silence. The sheriff’s deputies didn't move a muscle, their hands resting comfortably on their duty belts.
"You..." Julian whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of hatred and absolute powerlessness. "You will burn in hell for this, you old witch."
"Deputy Miller," Martha said without taking her eyes off Julian, "please escort these three gentlemen off the premises. If their vehicles belong to the Sterling Holding Corporation, have them leave the keys on the bonnet."
"Wait!" Pierce shrieked, running toward his convertible. "Not my car! It’s a Ferrari! It’s my car!"
Judge Vance glanced at a manifest on his clipboard. "Ferrari 488, registered to Sterling Equine Logistics LLC. Keys on the hood, Mr. Pierce Sterling. Or Deputy Miller will gladly transport you to the county jail for vehicle theft."
Pierce let out a pathetic, high-pitched sob. With shaking hands, he pulled the key fob from his pocket and threw it onto the hood of the red sports car. "This is insane! Carter, do something! Call Uncle Robert! Call the governor!"
"Uncle Robert died five years ago, you idiot!" Carter yelled back, burying his face in his hands. "And the governor won't touch Vance with a ten-foot pole! We’re ruined! Don't you understand? We’re completely broke!"
Carter turned to Martha, dropping to his knees right there on the gravel. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, ruining his designer stubble. "Martha... please. I owe three million dollars to private lenders in New York. If I can't pay them by Friday, they’re going to take my fingers. I swear to God, Martha, they’ll kill me! Mom wouldn't want me dead! Please, just release five million from the trust! Just five million! That's pocket change to you now!"
Martha looked down at Carter. She remembered him as a little boy, crying in his room because his father had yelled at him for spilling milk. She had held him, sung to him, baked him sugar cookies, and told him everything would be alright.
She had loved these boys as if they were her own flesh.
And in return, when their mother died, Carter hadn't even looked up from his phone while Julian threw her down the steps.
"Miss Eleanor left specific instructions for your debts, Carter," Martha said softly, her voice tinged with deep sorrow, but completely devoid of weakness.
Carter looked up, hope flashing across his desperate eyes. "She did? What? What did she say?"
"She said that a man who gambles with money he didn't earn must learn the value of sweat," Martha quoted Eleanor’s exact words from the trust ledger. "The trust will not pay a single cent of your speculative debts. However, if you declare personal bankruptcy and enter an accredited addiction rehabilitation program, the trust will pay for the clinic. After that, there is an open position in the horse stables. Mucking stalls pays twelve dollars an hour. You are welcome to apply."
Carter’s jaw dropped. The horror in his eyes was absolute. "Muck... mucking stalls? Me? I’m a Sterling!"
"Not anymore," Martha said firmly. "You are just an unemployed man with bad debts."
Julian grabbed Carter by the collar and yanked him violently to his feet. "Get up, you pathetic coward! Stop begging to this servant! We’re leaving!"
Julian glared at Martha, his eyes bloodshot, veins pulsing in his temples. "Enjoy your little victory, Martha. Enjoy sleeping in my mother’s bed. Because you are an uneducated peasant. You don't know how to run a seventy-million-dollar equine syndicate. Within six months, this estate will collapse, and when it does, I will buy it back on the courthouse steps for ten cents on the dollar!"
"Whispering Oaks has survived for a century, Julian," Martha replied calmly. "And it will survive you."
Deputy Miller stepped forward, gesturing toward the estate’s heavy iron gates. "Gentlemen. Your town car has arrived at the bottom of the hill. You have five minutes to walk down that driveway, or I am arresting all three of you for criminal trespassing."
Julian grabbed his coat from the hood of the Porsche. Pierce grabbed a single small backpack of clothes that the deputies allowed him to keep. Carter stumbled behind them, weeping uncontrollably.
Together, the three Sterling brothers—heirs to one of the greatest dynasties in Kentucky history—turned their backs on Whispering Oaks and began the long, humiliating, half-mile walk down the asphalt driveway on foot.
Martha Jenkins watched them go until their silhouettes disappeared into the fog at the bottom of the hill.
Then, she turned and looked at the grand mahogany doors of the mansion.
May you like
For the first time in forty years, Martha did not walk to the servant’s entrance in the rear. She walked up the center of the stone portico, pushed open the grand front doors, and stepped inside.
***
