Chapter 4 - The Fall of the Empress
Ten minutes later, the door to my hospital room opened with a slow, hesitant creak.
Eleanor Vance stepped inside.
The contrast between the woman who had clapped at the baby shower yesterday and the woman standing before me now was staggering. Gone was the pristine, haughty matriarch draped in emeralds and designer silk. Eleanor wore a rumpled designer trench coat over a plain black dress, her hair unstyled, her face devoid of makeup, her eyes red-rimmed and hollow from a sleepless night of panic and despair.
She looked twenty years older.
She walked slowly toward my bed, her hands trembling as she clutched a leather handbag against her stomach like a shield.
“Victoria,” she whispered, her voice cracking, completely stripped of its former aristocratic arrogance.
I didn't invite her to sit down. I simply leaned back against my pillows, keeping my teacup in my hand, and looked at her the exact way she had looked at me as I lay bleeding on the ballroom floor.
“Eleanor,” I replied smoothly. “To what do I owe the absolute displeasure? Did the federal marshals run out of complimentary coffee in the lobby?”
Eleanor flinched as if I had struck her across the face. She took a faltering step forward, her lower lip trembling.
“Victoria… please,” she choked out, her voice breaking into a ragged sob. “You have to stop this. You have to call your lawyers. You have to tell the FBI that this is all a terrible misunderstanding!”
I took a slow sip of my tea, savoring the warmth. “A misunderstanding? Which part, Eleanor? The twenty-four million dollars Daniel embezzled from the pension funds, or the offshore accounts in the Caymans that you personally signed off on?”
“We are family!” Eleanor cried, taking another step forward, desperation leaking into her voice. “You’re carrying our grandchild! How can you destroy the father of your child? How can you throw your own family into the streets?”
I set my teacup down on the bedside table with a sharp clack.
The sound made Eleanor jump.
“Family?” I asked, my voice dropping into a cold, lethal register. “Is that what you call people you stand and applaud while they are beaten bloody on a ballroom floor? Is that what you call a woman you publicly humiliate, degrade, and dismiss as ‘barren trash’?”
Eleanor’s face flushed a deep, mottled red, tears spilling over her mascara-stained cheeks. “That was… that was just high society pressure! Daniel was stressed! You know how much pressure is on the heir to the Vance name! You provoked him!”
I let out a cold, humorless laugh.
“I provoked him by breathing?” I asked, shaking my head slowly. “Let me make something abundantly clear to you, Eleanor. Yesterday, when your son drove his fist into my stomach, he didn't just attack his wife. He signed his own death warrant, and he signed yours, too.”
Eleanor gripped the edge of the mattress, her knuckles turning bone-white. “Victoria… please. I am begging you. They’ve frozen my personal accounts. I can’t even buy groceries. They’re seizing the mansion in Lake Forest by the end of the week. Where am I supposed to go? What am I supposed to do?”
I looked at her—this woman who had ruled Chicago’s high society with an iron fist of cruelty, who had looked down her nose at every human being she deemed inferior, who had stood over my broken body and celebrated my destruction.
“You can do what every other destitute criminal does,” I said quietly. “Find a small, cheap apartment. Get a job. Learn what it’s like to survive on a budget that doesn't involve laundering cartel money through real estate.”
Eleanor stared at me, the final remnants of her composure shattering entirely. A look of pure, venomous hatred twisted her features.
“You vicious, cold-hearted bitch!” she shrieked, her voice rising in hysteria. “You planned this! All of it! You trapped my son! You seduced him with your quiet little smiles while you were plotting behind his back like a snake in the grass! You’re nothing! Without the Vance name, you’re just a spoiled little girl playing dress-up!”
I didn't yell. I didn't flinch. I simply pressed a button on my bedside console.
The door clicked open instantly, and the two towering federal marshals stepped into the room, their hands resting on their sidearms.
“Escort Mrs. Vance out of the hospital,” I commanded smoothly, my eyes locked on Eleanor’s terrified face. “And ensure that she is added to the permanent visitor exclusion list. If she comes within five hundred yards of me or my child again, have her arrested for harassment and probation violation.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the lead marshal said, stepping forward and grabbing Eleanor firmly by both arms.
“Get your hands off me! Let me go!” Eleanor screamed, thrashing wildly as they hauled her backward toward the door. “You won’t get away with this, Victoria! The Vances always win! Do you hear me?! ALWAYS WIN!”
Her screams echoed down the hallway, growing fainter and fainter until the heavy oak door clicked shut, sealing her out of my world forever.
The room returned to a heavy, peaceful silence.
I reached down, resting both hands over my stomach. Inside, the baby gave a soft, reassuring kick, as if telling her mother that the storm had finally passed.
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“The Vances always win,” I murmured to myself, a dark, victorious smile touching my lips.
Let’s see how they do from a prison cell.
