Chapter 12 - A Mother’s Poison
I pulled the door open before the wood splintered.
Evelyn stood on the porch, her face pale, rain dripping from her mascara down her contoured cheeks.
Behind her, the driver stood at attention with the umbrella, his eyes fixed firmly on the floorboards.
"Where is she?" Evelyn demanded, her voice shrill and trembling with rage.
"She’s my wife, Mrs.
Sterling," I said, blocking the threshold.
"Get out of my way, you penniless parasite!" she hissed, trying to shove past my chest.
I didn't budge an inch.
"Mom," Fiona’s voice cracked from behind me.
Evelyn stopped.
She looked past my shoulder, her eyes locking onto her daughter.
Fiona stood barefoot in an oversized flannel shirt Dad had lent her, her eyes rimmed with red.
"Fiona," Evelyn cried, her tone instantly pivoting from fury to theatrical agony.
"Look at you!
Look at what they’ve reduced you to in five hours!
Standing in the filth of a shack!"
"This is a home, Mom," Fiona said quietly.
"Your father has collapsed!" Evelyn shrieked into the damp night.
"Do you hear me?
Richard is at St.
Jude’s Hospital right now!
The doctors are running tests on his heart because you abandoned five hundred people at the altar!"
Fiona gasped, her hand flying to her throat.
I felt a wave of disgust hit my stomach.
It was the oldest trick in the Sterling family playbook: manufactured guilt.
"Is he really sick, Mrs.
Sterling?" I asked coldly.
"Or did the board members just start canceling their venture contracts after they realized what you did?"
Evelyn’s glare turned venomous.
"You shut your mouth, boy!
You dragged my daughter into the gutter because your father couldn't afford a proper tuxedo!"
"He could afford the whole hotel, Evelyn," Dad’s voice came from the shadows of the kitchen.
It wasn't loud.
It was low, resonant, and heavy as iron.
Evelyn froze.
The arrogance on her face cracked, just for a fraction of a second, exposing raw terror.
Dad walked forward into the light of the entryway.
He was wearing his faded thermal shirt and denim trousers.
He smelled of cedarwood, rain, and motor oil.
"You haven't changed in thirty years," Dad said, leaning against the doorframe.
"Always using your husband's health as a shield when your own vanity gets cornered."
Evelyn swallowed hard.
"Edward..." she stammered, using my father’s real first name—a name almost no one in our town ever used.
"You told me you were dead to this city."
"I was," Dad replied calmly.
"Until you decided to spit on my son."
"He took our daughter!"
"Your daughter chose to walk out of a pigsty masquerading as a banquet," Dad said.
"Now, take your muddy shoes off my porch before I call the sheriff for trespassing."
Evelyn stepped back, her chest heaving.
She pointed a shaking, manicured finger at Fiona.
"If you don't get in that car right now, Fiona, you are cut off.
Every trust fund.
Every account.
The family name will be stripped from you.
You will die in poverty just like this old mechanic!"
Fiona didn't flinch.
She looked down at her bare feet, then at the ring on her left finger—a simple silver band Dad had kept in his drawer, polished smooth by time.
"Drive home, Mom," Fiona said.
"I already have a family now."
Evelyn stared at her daughter as if looking at a ghost.
Then she turned, her heel catching on the bottom step, nearly sending her into the mud.
Her driver caught her elbow, but she slapped his arm away.
"You'll regret this!" she screamed into the rain.
"By tomorrow noon, Edward, the Sterling Foundation will own every square inch of this county!
I will bulldoze this shack into the swamp!"
May you like
The Maybach’s doors slammed.
Tires spun on gravel, flinging mud across Dad's fence, before the car vanished into the dark.
