Chapter 4 - The Tables TurnedTwo hours later, the penthouse doors opened to reveal a broken man.
Edwin Vance looked ten years older. His expensive designer suit was wrinkled and stained at the cuffs. His hair was uncombed, his eyes bloodshot and sunken into dark, hollow sockets. Gone was the swaggering, arrogant corporate predator who had toyed with her emotions and laughed at her grief.
Two burly security guards shoved him forward into the center of the expansive living room. Edwin stumbled, catching himself against the edge of a mahogany side table, breathing heavily.
He looked up, and his eyes landed on Camila.
She was sitting behind a sleek, minimalist glass desk, sipping black coffee from a delicate porcelain cup. She didn't stand up. She didn't offer him a seat. She simply looked down at him the way a scientist might examine a particularly unpleasant specimen under a microscope.
“Camila...” Edwin choked out, his voice cracking. He took a desperate step forward, his hands trembling as he reached out imploringly. “Camila, please... you have to listen to me. It was a misunderstanding. Beverly and Annika... they pressured me! They made me act like a monster! But we’re husband and wife—we’ve been together for five years—”
“Ex-husband,” Camila corrected smoothly, setting her cup down with a soft clink. “Our divorce papers were filed and countersigned by a family court judge an hour ago. You were served by a bailiff at the motel lobby twenty minutes before you got into the car.”
Edwin froze, his jaw dropping open. “Divorce? You... you didn't even give me a chance to contest it!”
“Contest what?” Camila raised an eyebrow. “On grounds of abandonment, financial fraud, emotional abuse, and criminal endangerment during a family medical emergency? You’d be lucky if the judge didn't throw you straight into a maximum-security cell alongside your embezzlement charges.”
Desperation twisted Edwin’s features into an ugly, pathetic mask. He fell to his knees on the plush wool rug, crawling forward like a beggar groveling for scraps.
“Camila, please! I’m begging you!” he wept, beating his fists softly against the floor. “Take all the money! Take the company, take the cars, take everything! Just... just help me settle these debts! The men I borrowed private capital from... they’re loan sharks, Camila! If I don't pay them by tomorrow morning, they’re going to break my legs! They’re going to kill me!”
Camila watched him with absolute detachment. There was no pity in her heart, no lingering warmth from the five years she had spent cooking his meals and washing his shirts.
“When I begged you to let me go to the hospital to say goodbye to my dying father,” Camila said, her voice dropping into a register of chilling calm, “did you feel any pity for me?”
Edwin choked on his own breath, his eyes widening in horror as the memory rushed back.
“When you locked the door in the middle of a freezing storm and told me to crawl under your dog three times like an animal,” she continued, standing up slowly from her chair and walking toward him, “did you think about mercy?”
Edwin backed away on his hands and knees, whimpering like a whipped animal. “I was angry... I was stressed... I didn't know your father was—!”
“You didn't care who my father was,” Camila interrupted, towering over him. “You only cared about power. You thought my silence was weakness. You thought my patience was stupidity. You built your entire life on a foundation of arrogance, and the moment the floor gave out, you turned into a coward.”
She looked down at him with quiet disgust.
“Get out.”
“Camila, please—!”
“Get out of my sight before I have security throw you out the window,” she commanded.
The security guards moved in instantly, grabbing Edwin by the shoulders and hauling him to his feet. He thrashed and screamed, begging for mercy, but his voice faded as they dragged him down the private elevator and out of her life forever.
Camila walked back to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out over the glittering lights of the city as night began to fall. The storm had completely cleared, leaving behind a sky full of bright, unblemished stars.
May you like
She raised her coffee cup in a silent toast to the dark.
Rest in peace, Dad, she whispered in her heart. I took care of it.
