Chapter 6 - Cassandra's Desperate Attempt To Blame The Economy Falls Apart
Renee let out a sharp, horrified gasp, dropping her handbag onto the floor.
“Derek!” Renee cried, rounding on her son-in-law. “You told us the commercial line was entirely secured by your mother’s estate assets! You swore our family’s social standing in this neighborhood was safe!”
“It was supposed to be safe!” Derek yelled, slamming his hand onto the table, the silver napkin rings rattling against the wood. “Mom was supposed to let the trust sit there! She was never supposed to pull the audit!”
He turned to me, his face contorted in a mixture of shame, exhaustion, and bitter resentment.
“Why couldn't you just leave it alone, Mom? The business was turning around! Cassandra spent two years networking with the country club committees! In six months, we would have been clearing forty thousand a month in net margins! I would have paid back every single dollar to the trust before you ever knew it was gone!”
“You stole one hundred and fifty-six thousand dollars from your dead father’s legacy, Derek,” I said, each word landing like an iron weight in the quiet room. “And you didn't do it to save a sick child or keep food on the table. You did it to buy gold-leaf chairs so your wife could laugh at me and tell eighteen people that cooking and cleaning was my entire personality.”
Cassandra jumped to her feet, her chair scraping violently against the floor.
“This is about your pride!” she shrieked, pointing an accusatory, shaking finger at me. “You’ve resented me from the day Derek married me because I didn't spend my life scrubbing toilets at a dental clinic! You’re jealous that I have ambition! You’re willing to bankrupt your own son and put your grandchildren on the street just because your feelings got hurt over a Thanksgiving joke!”
I looked at Cassandra.
The theatrical outrage.
The complete absence of remorse.
The ugly, desperate entitlement that had consumed my son’s life for eight years.
I stood up slowly from my chair, smoothed down the front of my simple wool slacks, and picked up the third folder from the table.
“My pride didn't forge those bank instruments, Cassandra,” I said, my voice dropping into a register so quiet that Derek stopped breathing. “And my hurt feelings didn't spend sixty thousand dollars on luxury vacations to St. Barts while defaulting on commercial equipment leases.”
I opened the third folder and laid twelve high-resolution color photographs on the table.
They were internal accounting receipts from Aura Luxe’s corporate checking account.
Hotel suites in Gustavia.
Designer clothing purchases in Manhattan.
Five-thousand-dollar dinners at five-star resorts in Aspen.
All billed as ‘market research and supplier development expenses’ on the credit line backed by my husband’s life insurance.
Derek stared at the receipts, his mouth falling open, slowly turning his head to look at his wife.
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“Cassie...” Derek whispered, his voice cracking into broken pieces. “You told me those trips were paid for by your father’s travel points.”
Cassandra froze, her finger still pointed in the air, the color completely draining from her lips until she looked like a statue made of salt.
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