Chapter 8 - The Shadow’s Last Card
Two months after the wedding, a final, desperate desperate strike came from the ashes of my old life.
It was a Tuesday afternoon when my mother showed up at the Vance-Vane corporate tower on Madison Avenue.
She didn't have an appointment, but because she was legally my mother, security allowed her up to the executive lounge on the fiftieth floor.
When I walked into the glass-walled conference room, Eleanor Mercer looked ten years older. Her hair was immaculate as always, but the lines around her mouth were bitter, and her Chanel suit looked loose on her frame.
“Elena,” she said, standing up, her voice trembling with manufactured emotion. “Thank God you’ll see me.”
“You have five minutes, Mother,” I said, sitting at the head of the marble conference table, keeping my distance. “Julian will be back from his board meeting shorty.”
Eleanor flinched at Julian’s name, then took a step toward me, clasping her hands together.
“Elena, you have to help us,” she begged. “The federal government is freezing your father’s personal accounts because of Sloane’s restitution order! We’re going to lose the Greenwich estate! Sloane is facing prison time if we can't pay the rest of the restitution!”
I watched her with complete detachment. “Sloane committed a federal crime, Mother. She tried to steal four million dollars from dying children.”
“She was manipulated!” Eleanor cried out, pulling a handkerchief from her purse. “Derek seduced her! She’s fragile, Elena! You know how fragile she is! You’re the strong one! You’ve always been the strong one!”
I stared at her, feeling the final lingering knot of childhood longing inside my heart snap completely.
“Fragile,” I repeated softly. “For twenty-six years, you used that word to excuse every cruel, selfish, wicked thing she did to me.”
I stood up, resting my hands on the polished marble table, leaning forward until my mother was forced to step back.
“When she stole my clothes, she was fragile,” I said, my voice cold and precise. “When she crashed my car, she was fragile. When she lay in bed with my fiancé while I was on a ventilator, she was fragile.”
Tears of genuine panic welled in my mother’s eyes. “She’s your sister!”
“She’s a thief,” I corrected. “And you are her accomplice because you enabled her every step of the way.”
The heavy frosted-glass door opened, and Julian walked in.
He took one look at my mother’s panicked face, then walked over to my side, placing a warm, protective hand on the small of my back. His presence was an impenetrable wall between me and her venom.
“Mrs. Mercer,” Julian said coldly. “You were informed by my legal department last week that a restraining order has been filed against all members of the Mercer family.”
“Julian, please!” Eleanor wept. “We’re family!”
“No,” Julian corrected softly, his gray eyes flashing with lethal finality. “You were her family. Now, she belongs to mine. Leave before I have my security team escort you to the street in handcuffs.”
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My mother looked between the two of us—seeing the absolute, unbreakable united front we presented—and realized she had lost completely.
She turned and fled the room, her designer heels clicking frantically against the glass floorboards.
