Chapter 4: The House of Cards
The next 48 hours were a blur of flashing lights and legal fire. The "Sterling" name was being stripped from her. Reporters swarmed the gates of the Hamptons estate, not to cover a society wedding, but the downfall of a fraud.
Beatrice sat in the same living room, now stripped of its luster, watching as the movers began to pack away the artifacts of a stolen life. She tried to maintain her arrogance, but the power had evaporated. Without the name, without the fortune, she was just a woman with a mountain of secrets and no audience.
"Why?" Julian asked, standing over her. He had grown into his own skin, his eyes no longer fearful. "You had everything. Why play the monster?"
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"Because when you come from nothing," Beatrice whispered, her voice cracked, "the fear of returning to it makes you capable of anything. You think you’re better than me? Wait until you’re sitting in that chair, deciding what secrets you’ll kill to protect."
Elena stood by the door, watching the woman who had once been her tormentor now reduced to a shell of vanity. The irony was poetic: the person who had served the house was now the one who had inherited the truth.
