Chapter 23: The Greedy Mother-in-Law’s Fall
Six months later, Evelyn Carter was released from state prison after serving her sentence for financial fraud.
She walked out of the prison gates with a single plastic bag containing her old, faded clothes. Her fur coat had been sold to pay off her court fines. She was broke, homeless, and alienated by all her former wealthy friends.
She wandered to her old suburban neighborhood, only to find her former villa occupied by a new family.
“Get off my lawn, you old crazy woman!” the new owner shouted, shooing her away with a broom.
Evelyn sat on a public bench in the park, shivering in the cold wind. She opened a discarded newspaper she found in the trash.
On the front cover was a full-page photo of Natalie attending the United Nations Global Women’s Empowerment Summit in Geneva, standing alongside world leaders and royalty.
Evelyn remembered how she used to order Natalie around like a maid, forcing her to clean the floors on her hands and knees and scolding her for using too much water.
“If only… if only I had treated her like a daughter,” Evelyn sobbed quietly into the cold night air, her tears dropping onto the newspaper photo. “If only we weren’t so greedy…”
But the world offered no second chances to those who trampled on sincerity.
Suggested stories
Thomas “Tom” Miller (48), a master bespoke tailor in historic downtown Lancaster, Pennsylvania, spent three grueling months hand-stitching an exquisite silk-wool bridal suit and cathedral ensemble for his stepdaughter, Sabrina (23). Tom raised Sabrina as his own flesh and blood since she was one yea…
Read storyIn the affluent enclave of Greenwich, Connecticut, widower Arthur Vance—CEO of Vance Precision Industries—fights to keep his household together following the tragic death of his wife Clara eighteen months ago. In his grief and demanding executive schedule, Arthur married Elena, an elegant society fi…
Read story“If You’re So Smart, Then Translate It!” — The Mafia Boss Mocked the Waitress, Then Froze in Shock.Lydia Hart is a 24-year-old computational linguistics doctoral candidate at Columbia University, secretly moonlighting as a VIP waitress at The Obsidian—an unmarked elite underground supper club in Man…
Read storyReed Ashford, thirty-eight, is the undisputed sovereign of the Ashford syndicate, controlling the ports, shipping corridors, and luxury nightlife of the Eastern Seaboard. Feared for his icy calm and absolute authority, Reed has never raised his voice in fifteen years of rule. But behind fortified wa…
Read storyTwo years after clawing her way out of an emotionally abusive, financially controlling marriage to mid-level commercial developer Nathan Brooks, thirty-two-year-old Vivienne Vance has rebuilt her dignity from scratch. Operating Vance Studio, a boutique architectural interior design firm in Chicago’s…
Read storyKendrick Ashford (36) is the undisputed Don of the East Coast Ashford Syndicate and CEO of Ashford Global Enterprises. Feared for his cold lethality and iron-fisted rule, Kendrick lives only for his five-year-old daughter, Penny, who has remained completely mute since witnessing the brutal assassina…
Read story