Chapter 6 - The Unraveling of Cleo
While the Vance empire was collapsing into public ruin, Cleo Vance—formerly Cleo Montague—was discovering that the high-society world she had worked so hard to climb was terrifyingly small, and entirely controlled by the woman she had helped insult.
Inside her luxury high-rise apartment in Soho—an apartment whose lease had been signed using Sterling Global subsidiary funds—Cleo was frantically packing three large Louis Vuitton suitcases.
Her phone was ringing incessantly. Every modeling agency in New York, Paris, and Milan had dropped her from their rosters within twenty-four hours of the Plaza Hotel incident. Her Instagram account, which boasted two million followers, had been flooded with tens of thousands of comments decrying her as a corporate gold-digger, causing three major global cosmetics brands to publicly cancel her endorsement contracts.
"Damn it! Damn it!" Cleo screamed, slamming a hand-knotted cashmere sweater into her suitcase.
The electronic lock on her front door beeped, and the heavy door swung open.
Cleo spun around, expecting her manager. Instead, she found two men in dark gray suits standing in her foyer, accompanied by a woman holding a digital tablet and a clipboard.
"Cleo Montague?" the woman asked crisply.
"Who the hell are you?!" Cleo demanded, grabbing her designer handbag off the sofa. "This is a private residence! Get the hell out before I call the police!"
"This was a private residence leased by SGM Holding Corp," the woman corrected smoothly. "I am a senior estate administrator for Kensington Real Estate Management. As of two hours ago, this building and all master commercial leases within it have been acquired by the Kensington Heritage Trust."
The woman tapped her tablet, bringing up an official eviction notice stamped by the Manhattan Civil Court.
"You have thirty minutes to vacate the premises, Miss Montague," the administrator stated neutrally. "Furthermore, under the terms of the emergency corporate asset recovery order issued this morning, all items purchased using SGM corporate accounts must remain on the premises pending judicial review."
Cleo’s eyes widened in horror. "What?! These are my personal clothes! My shoes! My jewelry!"
"Your three-carat emerald bracelet was purchased using an SGM corporate credit card terminating in digits 4092," the administrator noted, consulting her list. "Your Birkin bag collection was invoiced directly to Sterling Global’s public relations discretionary account. If you attempt to remove those items from this apartment, you will be committing grand larceny."
"You can't do this!" Cleo shrieked, tears of rage and humiliation streaming down her heavily contoured face. "Vance gave those to me! They were gifts!"
"Vance Sterling was committing corporate embezzlement," a cold, smooth voice echoed from the hallway.
I stepped through the doorway, draped in a cream-colored trench coat, my hands tucked casually into my pockets.
Cleo froze, her breath catching in her throat as she stared at me. Gone was the quiet, meek girl who had sat in the corner of social galas wearing simple dresses. Standing before her was the sole heiress to the Kensington fortune—a woman whose posture exuded absolute, untouchable power.
"Evelyn..." Cleo whispered, her voice trembling.
"Miss Montague," I said, my tone as calm as a quiet morning. "I believe the last time we spoke, you were standing beside my husband at the Plaza Hotel, smiling while his mother struck my face."
"I... I didn't know!" Cleo stuttered, taking a frantic step backward until her heels hit the edge of her sofa. "Vance told me you were an estranged distant relative! He told me you were just staying with them because you had nowhere else to go! I swear to God, Evelyn, I didn't know who you were!"
"It shouldn't matter who I was, Cleo," I replied softly, walking slowly across the hardwood floor until I stood three feet from her. "Even if I had been a penniless orphan from upstate... even if I had been a housemaid... I was still a human being. And you stood there and enjoyed my humiliation because you thought it made you look important."
I reached out, gently picking up a high-end designer handbag sitting on the counter beside her—a rare crocodile-skin piece that Vance had bought her two months ago while telling me we couldn't afford to take a weekend trip to see my old art teacher.
"Take your personal passport, your phone, and the clothes you arrived in New York with," I said, setting the handbag back down on the marble counter. "Leave everything else."
"My father..." Cleo gasped, her eyes filled with desperate panic. "My father’s business in Miami... please... don't hurt his firm... he didn't do anything..."
"Your father’s real estate firm was built on sub-contractual work for Kensington Logistics," I said, looking her directly in the eyes. "This morning, our board voted to re-bid those contracts. Your father has twenty-four hours to sever all public ties with you and issue a formal apology to our foundation, or his firm will lose its primary operating license in Florida."
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Cleo collapsed onto the edge of her sofa, burying her face in her manicured hands, sobbing uncontrollably as the dark, cold reality of her absolute ruin finally crushed her spirit.
I turned around, walking out of the apartment into the bright, clean hallway, leaving her behind in the empty palace of cards she had helped build.
