Chapter 9 - The Mother-in-Law’s Begging
The next morning, torrential rain battered against the gates of the Vance Westchester estate. The iron gates stood closed, guarded by private security personnel in black rain gear.
Outside on the muddy sidewalk, Evelyn Sterling had been kneeling for three hours. Her luxury clothes were soaked through, her designer hair ruined, her makeup running down her face in grotesque streaks. Beside her, Marcus sat shivering inside their repossessed sedan, too cowardly to face the cold.
"Elena! Please! Have pity on an old woman!" Evelyn wailed toward the security cameras mounted on the gateposts. "My son is dying in that prison! They beat him last night! He had two ribs broken! He won't survive another week!"
Inside the security gatehouse, I watched the live monitors while sipping hot chamomile tea.
"Miss Vance, should we turn the fire hoses on her?" the chief of security asked respectfully.
"No," I replied, standing up and pulling on an umbrella-draped trench coat. "Open the gate."
As the heavy wrought-iron gates slid open, Evelyn scrambled to her feet on all fours like a desperate hound, splashing through muddy puddles to throw herself at my feet.
"Elena! My darling girl!" she sobbed, clawing at my boots. "You have a good heart! You were always so dutiful! Forgive Daniel! He made a mistake! A momentary lapse of judgment! Vanessa bewitched him with drugs and lies! If you just drop the aggravated assault charge, he can come home! We will sign over everything! We will be your servants!"
I looked down at her with absolute disgust.
"A momentary lapse of judgment?" I asked softly, my voice cutting through the pounding rain.
Slowly, I unbuttoned the top of my trench coat and unzipped the high collar of my blouse, turning slightly so the high-intensity floodlights behind me illuminated my upper back.
Across my pale skin, the dark, raised, purple-and-black welts carved by the heavy leather crop crisscrossed like a roadmap of agony. Stitches still held the deepest gashes together, inflamed and raw.
Evelyn gasped, recoiling in genuine horror, her hands flying to her mouth.
"He whipped me twenty times, Evelyn," I said, my voice steady, freezing her to the marrow of her bones. "On the tenth strike, I begged him for water. Do you know what he did? He poured cheap champagne over the open cuts while Vanessa laughed and filmed it. Did he have a momentary lapse of judgment twenty times in a row?"
"I... I didn't know..." Evelyn stammered, shaking violently in the freezing mud.
"You knew he was volatile. You knew he slapped me two years ago, and you told me a good wife learns to keep her mouth shut so her husband doesn't have to correct her," I continued, stepping forward until she had to crane her neck upward. "Now, listen carefully. Daniel will serve every single day of his twenty-five-year sentence in state prison. If Marcus attempts to touch another company fund, he joins his brother. And you, Evelyn..."
I reached into my pocket and tossed a single five-dollar bill into the mud before her.
May you like
"Buy yourself a cup of coffee. Because by five o'clock today, the bank is foreclosing on your Long Island mansion. Get off my land before I have you arrested for stalking."
Turning on my heel, I walked back toward the estate. Behind me, the iron gates slammed shut with a deafening metallic clang, leaving Evelyn Sterling screaming curses and weeping into the mud.
