Chapter 4 - THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE
The panic that set into the mansion was a beautiful, chaotic symphony. Evelyn was hysterical, trying to hide her jewelry in her designer handbag, only to realize that the private security she usually called was refusing to answer. The relatives who had been so smug the night before were now scrambling to pack their suitcases, realizing that the "nothing" I had walked out with was actually everything they owned.
Rodrigo tried to call me. He called thirty times in ten minutes. When I finally answered, I was sitting on the balcony of my penthouse, watching the sunrise over the ocean.
"Elena! What did you do?" he roared into the phone. "You can't do this! This is illegal! I’ll sue you for every cent you have!"
"Sue me with what, Rodrigo?" I asked calmly. "The accounts are frozen. The company is insolvent without my capital. And as for the house... well, you told me to leave and not take anything you paid for. I did exactly that. I didn't take a single thing you paid for, because you haven't paid for a single thing in years. I paid for the cars. I paid for your mother’s pearls. I even paid for the shirt you're wearing."
"I loved you!" he lied, his voice cracking with desperation.
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"You slapped me, Rodrigo. You stood by while your mother mocked the child we lost. You thought I was a trophy you could polish and then throw away when you were bored. But I wasn't the trophy. I was the architect."
I hung up before he could respond. I had a meeting with the board of directors of his own company in an hour. By noon, I would be the majority shareholder, and by sunset, the Sanders name would be scrubbed from the building's facade. He had wanted me to leave with nothing, but in the end, he was the one standing in an empty foyer, surrounded by the ruins of a life he never truly earned.
