Chapter 2 - The Morning After the Storm
By six o'clock the following morning, the news of the catastrophe at the luxury restaurant had already spread through Chicago’s elite social circles like wildfire.
In the master suite of the Whitmore Estate in Gold Coast, Eleanor Whitmore sat in a floral velvet armchair, her head wrapped in an ice pack. Preston stood by the fireplace, nursing a glass of scotch despite the early hour, his face dark with suppressed rage. Meredith was pacing back and forth across the Persian rug, three cell phones resting on the glass coffee table beside her.
"It’s a disaster!" Eleanor wailed, dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief. "The manager at the restaurant had the audacity to send us a cleanup bill for twelve thousand dollars! Broken hand-blown crystal! Imported silk rug stains! And that... that servant walked out like she was royalty!"
"Calm down, Mother," Preston snapped, his jaw tight where Nora had gripped his wrist the previous night. "Daniel will bring her back by noon. He has no spine. He’ll make her apologize, pay for the damage, and scrub the floor himself if we order him to."
"He didn't answer his phone," Meredith said coldly, stopping her pacing. She picked up one of her phones and held it out to her husband. "I’ve called Daniel six times. He went straight to voicemail. That’s never happened before."
"He’s probably hiding in some cheap motel on the South Side with his little casserole girl," Preston sneered. "Let them stay there. Once the news cycles out, we’ll file a civil lawsuit against her for emotional distress and destruction of property. I’ll make sure her little market stand gets shut down by the health inspector by Friday."
Before Preston could finish his sentence, the heavy oak doors of the study burst open.
Arthur Whitmore walked into the room. The eighty-year-old patriarch looked tired, his formal suit from the night before replaced by an old wool cardigan. But his eyes, usually dim and passive, were bright with an alarming clarity.
"Arthur!" Eleanor gasped. "Why are you out of bed? The doctor said your blood pressure—"
"Quiet, Eleanor," Arthur said softly. His voice lacked its usual hesitation.
Preston scoffed. "Dad, don't start defending her now. The woman threw a cake across a dining room! She humiliated our name!"
"Our name was humiliated long before last night, Preston," Arthur said, walking over to the leather armchair and sitting down heavily. He looked at his eldest son with deep disappointment. "Where did you get the money for your medical research firm’s third-quarter payroll last week?"
Preston stiffened. "It was an advance from the family trust."
"There is no family trust," Arthur stated flatly.
The room went dead silent.
Meredith’s legal instincts kicked in instantly. She stepped forward, her eyes narrowing. "Arthur, what are you talking about? The Whitmore Trust holds eighteen commercial titles and twelve million in liquid bonds."
"The liquid bonds were sold three years ago to pay off Preston’s failed clinic in Miami," Arthur revealed, his voice steady. "And the commercial titles were mortgaged to the hilt to cover Eleanor’s credit accounts in Paris and London. We have been broke for two years."
Eleanor sat up straight, her face turning pale beneath her makeup. "Arthur! Stop this nonsense! We are the Whitmores! We own the Michigan Avenue tower!"
"We don't," Arthur said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a certified legal notice wrapped in heavy cream cardstock. He set it on the glass table. "This was delivered by a courier at five this morning."
Meredith rushed forward and snatched the document. As her eyes scanned the formal legal text, the color drained from her face until she looked as ghostly as her ivory suit from the night before.
"This... this can't be right," Meredith whispered, her voice trembling. "Notice of Foreclosure and Receivership... Rose & Walter Heritage Group... Exercising full acquisition rights over the Whitmore Building, the Gold Coast Estate, and all subsidiary credit instruments..."
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"What does it say?!" Preston shouted, grabbing the paper from his wife's hands.
"It says," Arthur said, looking his wife directly in the eyes, "that the market woman didn't lie. Nora Bennett owns everything we live in, everything we drive, and every dollar we spend."
