Chapter 6 - The Emergency Family Meeting
By Monday evening, the Sterling family home—a sprawling, overly grand suburban house that Beatrice couldn't afford to maintain—was in a state of absolute panic.
Beatrice was pacing back and forth across the Persian rug in the living room, a glass of Chardonnay trembling in her hand. The front curtains were drawn shut to block out the three local news vans parked along the curb outside.
Caleb sat on the sofa, clutching his head in his hands, surrounded by three empty beer bottles. His phone was ringing constantly with notifications from his bank regarding missed vehicle lease payments.
Maya was huddled in the armchair, hysterically sobbing as she refreshed her Instagram account, watching her follower count plummet by tens of thousands every hour while thousands of hateful comments flooded her older posts.
"How could she do this to us?!" Beatrice shrieked, slamming her wine glass down on the mahogany side table, sloshing yellow liquid over the wood. "How could Sarah hide three hundred million dollars from her own family?! From her mother?!"
"She set us up, Mom!" Caleb yelled, pulling his head up, his eyes bloodshot and furious. "She knew she was selling the company on Monday! She intentionally showed up to brunch looking like a beggar so you’d get mad at her! She baited us!"
"She didn't bait you to pour boiling coffee on her head, Caleb!" Maya wailed through her tears. "You pointed the phone at her! You told her to get a job! Now my entire career is destroyed! I lost my apartment lease today! My agency dropped me!"
"Shut up, both of you!" Beatrice barked, her voice high and frantic. "We need to fix this. We need to control the narrative."
"How, Mom?" Caleb gestured wildly toward the window. "There are reporters outside! My boss fired me on a Zoom call in front of four Vanguard executives! Vanguard owns Sarah’s company!"
Beatrice’s eyes narrowed, a desperate, calculating look washing over her face. "Sarah is my daughter. I raised her. I sacrificed everything for her after your father died."
"You spent dad's life insurance on your country club dues!" Caleb shouted.
"Silence!" Beatrice roared. She grabbed her purse from the counter and pulled out her phone. "Sarah is young. She’s overwhelmed by the money. She’s being influenced by those high-priced city lawyers. She’s still my child. When she sees her mother, when she remembers who fed her and clothed her, she will come to her senses."
"Mom, she’s not picking up her phone," Maya whimpered. "I tried calling her fifty times."
"Then we go to her," Beatrice said firmly, buttoning her expensive designer trench coat. "Caleb, get the car keys."
"The BMW was repossessed two hours ago, Mom," Caleb said flatly, pointing out the window where an empty driveway sat. "They towed it right off the street."
Beatrice gasped, clutching her chest. "Fine! We take my Lexus!"
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"Your Lexus has a mechanical lock on it because you missed three insurance payments," Maya added miserable.
Beatrice stood frozen in her living room, surrounded by the hollow remnants of the wealthy lifestyle she had spent a decade faking, realizing for the very first time that the golden goose she had spent three years beating had just flown away with all the gold.
