Chapter 6 - THE VULTURE’S LAST STAND
Three days later,
the peace was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Not a frantic banging,
but a slow,
deliberate thud.
I checked the camera.
It was Beatrice.
She wasn't wearing her designer silk this time.
She looked haggard,
her hair unkempt,
her eyes rimmed with red.
She looked like a woman who had finally realized the ground was disappearing beneath her.
I opened the window on the second floor.
“Go away, Beatrice.”
She looked up,
her face contorting into a mask of desperation.
“Camila,
please.”
“Sebastian is in the hospital.”
“They found him in an alley.”
“They broke his legs.”
I felt a cold shiver,
but I didn't let my voice waver.
“I’m sorry to hear that,”
I said.
“But I am not the one who put him there.”
“And I am not the one who can get him out.”
“He owes them two million dollars!”
she shrieked,
her voice cracking.
“If we don’t pay,
they’ll come back for the rest of him!”
“Then call the police, Beatrice.”
“Call the FBI.”
“Do what any normal family would do.”
“We can’t!”
she wailed.
“The money he borrowed...
it wasn't from a bank.”
“It was from people who don't care about the law.”
I looked down at her,
this woman who had once demanded my inheritance as if it were her birthright.
“And you thought my mother’s hard-earned money should go to criminals?”
“You thought her sacrifice should fund the underworld?”
“It’s just money, Camila!”
“It’s a life!”
“No,”
I said,
leaning out over the sill.
“It’s not just money.”
“It’s my mother’s life blood.”
“It’s her nights without sleep.”
“It’s her years of loneliness.”
“I will not hand it over to the people who hurt your son.”
“If I do,
I am part of the cycle.”
Beatrice fell to her knees in the driveway,
sobbing into her hands.
“We’re going to lose everything.”
“The house is being foreclosed.”
“Marcus is living in his car.”
I felt a fleeting pang of sadness for Marcus,
the man I had once loved.
But then I remembered him standing in the foyer,
letting Sebastian in to threaten me.
He hadn't protected me.
He hadn't even tried.
“Marcus can find a job, Beatrice.”
“He has an education.”
“He has health.”
“He can rebuild his life without my mother’s help.”
“As for you,”
I continued,
“you can move into a smaller place.”
“You can learn to live without the silk and the sherry.”
“I am done being your victim.”
I closed the window and locked it.
I watched her on the monitor for a long time.
She stayed on the ground for nearly an hour,
a broken queen in a gravel driveway.
Finally,
she stood up,
wiped her face,
and walked toward the gate.
She didn't look back.
I called Elena.
“It’s over,
isn't it?”
“Legally,
yes,”
Elena said.
“The divorce is proceeding.”
“The post-nup is holding firm.”
“They have no legal avenue to touch the money.”
“But Camila,
be careful.”
“Desperate people do desperate things.”
“I have the guards, Elena.”
“And I have my mother’s spirit.”
I went to the kitchen and began to cook.
I made the soup my mother used to make when I was sick.
The scent of garlic and ginger filled the house.
I realized that for the first time in my life,
I was truly alone.
May you like
And for the first time in my life,
I was truly free.
