Chapter 2 - The Mask Falls Off
Victoria tilted her head back and laughed, a high-pitched, mocking sound that echoed across the manicured lawn. In her hand, she held a glass of expensive vintage wine. Next to her stood two of her socialite friends, Chloe and Julian, both smirking with casual cruelty.
"Eat up, old woman," Victoria sneered, her voice dripping with malice. "Ethan’s not here to save you today. You should be grateful I’m even giving you that. A street beggar like you doesn't belong in a house this nice anyway. You ruin the aesthetic."
Julian snickered, swirling his drink. "Honestly, Victoria, how do you stand the smell? If my mother-in-law looked like a peasant from a Victorian slum, I’d lock her in the cellar."
"Oh, she knows her place," Victoria boasted, taking a sip of wine. "She stays out here during my parties. Ethan is too busy earning millions to notice what happens at home. As long as I look pretty on his arm, he believes every word I say."
My mother didn't look up. Her frail shoulders trembled violently under her faded cardigan—a cardigan I remembered her mending years ago so I could have a new coat for school. She picked up a sharp chicken bone with her arthritic fingers, her tears dripping directly onto the cold rice.
"I'm sorry, Victoria..." my mother whispered, her voice cracking. "I... I just wanted some bread. My stomach was hurting..."
"Shut up!" Victoria snapped, stepping forward and kicking the edge of the plastic plate, sending the scraps flying across the dirt. "You eat what I give you, when I give it to you! You're nothing but a leach living off my husband's wealth!"
The paper bag in my hands crumpled. The warm, sweet scent of cinnamon bread drifted up, striking me like a physical blow. The rage that erupted in my chest was so immense, so absolute, that my vision blurred with a red haze. The woman who had skipped meals for days so I wouldn't go to bed hungry... the woman who had ruined her knees scrubbing floors so I could wear clean shoes to my job interviews... was being treated worse than a stray animal in the very palace I had built for her.
I stepped out from the shadows of the patio pillars.
"Is that right, Victoria?" my voice tore through the air, cold, flat, and vibrating with an icy fury.
Victoria froze. Her glass slipped from her manicured fingers and shattered on the pavers, expensive red wine splashing over her designer shoes like blood. Chloe and Julian gasped, their smug expressions instantly melting into sheer terror as they turned to face me.
"E-Ethan?" Victoria stuttered, all the color draining from her face. Her posture collapsed from arrogant cruelness into frantic panic. "You... you're supposed to be on a plane to New York! Why are you home?"
I ignored her. I walked past her as if she were invisible, my heavy footsteps echoing against the stone. I dropped down onto the cold concrete next to my mother.
"Mom," I breathed, my voice cracking with an unbearable agony. I wrapped my arms around her frail, shivering frame. She was so thin. How had I not noticed how frail she had become over the last six months?
"Ethan... son?" my mother whimpered, trying to cover her torn sleeve, trying to hide her face in shame. "No, don't look at me... don't be mad at Victoria... she's your wife..."
"Don't protect her, Mom. Please, don't protect her," I wept, pulling her close, utterly uncaring of the dirt staining my bespoke suit. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I brought you into this snake pit. God forgive me."
"Ethan, darling, let me explain!" Victoria rushed over, her hands fluttering in the air, trying to reach out to me. "It's not what it looks like! Your mother... she's been getting confused lately! She threw her food on the ground herself! I was just trying to help her—"
I stood up slowly. I am six-foot-two, and at that moment, the weight of my entire fortune, my power, and my unbounded fury pressed down into the air around us. I turned to look at Victoria.
"Say one more word," I whispered, my voice chillingly calm. "Say one more lie about my mother, and I swear to God you will leave this property with nothing but the clothes on your back."
Victoria took a step back, her eyes wide with fear. "Ethan, please! I'm your wife! You're taking the side of a senile old woman over me?"
"Get out," I said.
"What?" she blinked.
"All of you. Get the hell off my property before I have my security team drag you out by your hair." I turned my glare toward Chloe and Julian, who were already backing away toward the side gate, terrified. "And if either of you ever speaks of this, I will destroy your families' businesses by the end of the week. Try me."
The two guests fled without a word, the heavy wooden gate slamming shut behind them.
Victoria stood alone in the yard, her face twisting from panic into a bitter, toxic sneer. "You can't kick me out! My father is Senator Vance! If you touch me, if you ruin my reputation, he will destroy your company! You need my family's connections!"
I pulled my phone from my pocket, dialed my chief of security, David, and put it on speaker.
"David," I said coldly.
"Yes, Mr. Cole?"
"Escort my wife off the premises immediately. Change every lock on the estate, invalidate her keycards, and freeze all secondary credit cards linked to my accounts. If she resists, call the police and file a trespass charge."
"Understood, sir. On my way."
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Victoria gasped, her phone buzzing seconds later with notifications as her bank accounts were systematically locked. "Ethan! You can't do this to me! I am a Vance!"
"You were my wife," I corrected her, picking up my mother gently in my arms. "Now you're nothing."
