Chapter 13 - The Descent into the Underbelly
Three weeks later, the neon lights of Times Square offered no comfort to Patricia Vance. Once accustomed to private chauffeurs, custom spa treatments, and exclusive charity galas where she reigned as queen bee, she now sat on a worn vinyl booth at a greasy twenty-four-hour diner in Queens, staring miserably into a cup of lukewarm, bitter coffee.
The state-funded assisted-living facility her son had managed to place her in was little more than a glorified nursing ward filled with the low hum of medical equipment and the smell of antiseptic. She had tried calling every single society friend she had cultivated over thirty years of high-society networking. Some hung up the moment they heard her voice; others politely lied about being out of the country; and a few outright laughed, reminding her of how loudly she had cackled at Evelyn Hart just moments before the world collapsed.
The diner door chimed as a blast of freezing autumn wind swept inside. A man wrapped in a worn-out trench coat shuffled in, his head down, shoulders hunched against the cold. It was Everett.
He slid into the booth across from his mother, his face unshaven, bags under his eyes so dark they looked like bruises.
"Did you... did you reach out to Uncle Richard?" Patricia asked hopefully, her voice cracking as she clutched her styrofoam cup. "He owes your father favors from the old political campaigns in Albany. Surely he can lend us a house, or at least some cash—"
"Uncle Richard blocked my number, Mom," Everett interrupted flatly, staring down at the sticky formica table. "And his law firm sent a cease-and-desist letter warning that if I contact his family again, they’ll press charges for harassment."
Patricia let out a ragged, broken sob, burying her face in her trembling hands. "How did this happen, Everett? How did a nobody from nowhere destroy us overnight? Where is she now? What is she doing?"
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Everett didn't answer. He didn't have the heart to tell her that while they were rotting in the gutters of New York's economic underbelly, Evelyn Hart was currently gracing the cover of Forbes magazine, heralded as the mastermind behind the greatest corporate restructuring in modern Wall Street history.
Across the street on a towering digital billboard, a crisp, high-definition advertisement flickered to life. It was a promotional campaign for Blackstone Crest Holdings' new global philanthropic initiative—pledging fifty million dollars to urban renewal projects across New York City. At the center of the billboard, looking down with serene, untouchable majesty, was Evelyn Hart, wearing a diamond necklace worth more than both of their lives combined.
