Chapter 3 - The Sins of the Father
Tiffany stared at her father in abject horror.
Arthur Vance had never bowed to anyone. He was the man who ruthlessly fired hundreds of employees before breakfast without blinking an eye. He was the man who had bought judges, manipulated stock markets, and crushed competitors until their lives were ruined. In Tiffany’s eyes, her father was God.
And now, God was kneeling in the dirt, sweating through his custom shirt, hyperventilating at the feet of a woman in a grass-stained lavender dress.
"Get up, Arthur," Eleanor said softly. She didn't raise her voice, but the sheer weight of her tone froze the air in the room. "You look undignified. And you know how much I despise men who grovel after they have failed to govern their own households."
Arthur didn't rise. He remained on his knees, his head bowed so low his forehead nearly brushed the tips of Eleanor’s modest leather walking shoes.
"Eleanor, she didn't know," Arthur pleaded, tears actually leaking from his bloodshot eyes. "Tiffany is young, she’s foolish, she was spoiled by her mother—"
"Do not blame your deceased wife for the monster you manufactured, Arthur," Eleanor snapped, her voice cutting through his excuses like a diamond blade. "You bought her silence with platinum credit cards. You taught her that human beings who do not appear on the Forbes list are scenery to be kicked out of her path. Today, she kicked the wrong stone. And the mountain is falling."
Tiffany’s survival instincts finally kicked in through the fog of terror. She scrambled across the floor on her knees, reaching out her manicured hand toward Eleanor’s skirt. "Mrs. Sterling, please! I'm sorry! I'll apologize publicly! I'll make a video, I'll pay for your dry cleaning, I'll buy you a new dress, I'll—"
"Touch me," Eleanor whispered, "and I will have the security guards drag you into the street by your hair."
Tiffany instantly yanked her hands back, trembling so hard she could barely stay upright.
Eleanor turned her attention back to Arthur, who was staring up at her with hollow, desperate eyes. "Arthur, do you remember the conversation we had seven years ago? When you begged me to bail Vance Capital out of the subprime disaster?"
"I remember," Arthur croaked. "I remember every word."
"I told you then that I had one condition for saving your firm," Eleanor said, folding her hands neatly across her lap. "I told you that wealth without character is a plague. I told you that if your family ever brought disgrace upon the Sterling legacy, or if I ever discovered that you were using my capital to fund arrogance and cruelty, I would pull the plug without a second thought."
"Eleanor, our stock dropped forty percent in twelve minutes!" Arthur cried out, clutching his chest. "If the trading freeze continues through tomorrow morning, the margin calls will trigger! We will be liquidated! Every asset, our home, the trust funds, the hedge fund—thirty years of work, gone!"
"Then you had better find a very good cardboard box, Arthur," Eleanor replied coldly. "Because as of five minutes ago, I instructed Julian Drake to initiate full foreclosure proceedings on your Bel-Air manor."
At the mention of that name, Marcus Delgado inhaled sharply.
Julian Drake was the most feared corporate liquidator on the West Coast. A man who ate billion-dollar conglomerates for breakfast and never left a single surviving penny for his targets. If Drake had been unleashed, Arthur Vance wasn't just in trouble; his entire existence was being systematically erased from the financial ecosystem.
"No!" Tiffany screamed, the reality crashing down on her like a tidal wave. "No, you can't take our house! You can't take my trust fund! Where am I supposed to live?! Who do you think you are?!"
"Tiffany, shut up!" Arthur roared, pivoting on his knees and swinging his arm with savage fury.
*CRACK!*
The open-handed slap struck Tiffany across the face, sending her sprawling onto her side against the frosted carpet.
The room went deathly silent once more.
Tiffany clutched her burning cheek, the taste of metallic copper flooding her mouth. Her father had never raised a finger against her in his life. But now, he looked at her not with love, but with pure, murderous hatred.
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"You ruined us," Arthur whispered, his teeth bared in an animalistic snarl. "You worthless, shallow, arrogant little brat. You destroyed our entire family for a piece of cake."
***
