Chapter 4 - The Ashes of the Past
By Saturday evening, the Vance estate was completely deserted.
Eleanor had packed her designer luggage and fled to a second-rate hotel in New Jersey after learning that her personal credit cards had been declined at Saks Fifth Avenue. Marisol was sitting in a holding cell downtown. And Celeste Hale was currently answering questions from federal investigators regarding her involvement in the offshore shell company.
I stood in the master bedroom of the mansion—the room Adrian and I had shared—holding a heavy black trash bag.
One by one, I pulled his thousand-dollar designer suits off their wooden hangers and dropped them into the bag. His shoes, his cologne, his framed golf trophies—everything that represented the gilded cage he had built around me—went into the trash.
I had played my part perfectly. I had let him believe he was the master of the house, letting his own greed and arrogance blind him to the truth until it was too late to run.
A soft knock sounded at the open door.
Raymond stood in the hallway, holding a thick manila envelope. "The receivership is complete, Vivian. Vance Global Logistics is officially under your sole proprietorship. You can liquidate, restructure, or sell to the German conglomerate by Monday morning."
"I'm not selling, Raymond," I said, tossing another empty hanger into the bag. "We're going to rename it. The Lily Sterling Foundation for Pediatric Cardiac Care. Every cent of profit this company generates from now on will go toward funding emergency medical treatments for children whose parents are told their lives exceed the quarterly budget."
Raymond smiled, a gentle, melancholic expression. "Your father would have been very proud of you."
"He prepared me for this," I replied, walking over to the dresser and picking up the small white ceramic urn.
May you like
I held it close to my chest, feeling the cool weight of it against my heart.
"We're going home, baby," I whispered to the empty room.
