Chapter 5 - The Family Meeting from HellBy late afternoon, the disaster had migrated from the luxury lobby to a dreary, fluorescent-lit diner three blocks away from the eviction site. It was the only place that would seat four frantic, disheveled people without an active reservation or a hefty deposit.
At a sticky vinyl booth sat Jason, flanked by a weeping Chloe and a furiously vibrating Barbara. Across from them sat a very unexpected guest: Arthur, who had tracked Jason down to demand a signed confession regarding the corporate loan fraud before going straight to the district attorney.
“You embezzled eighty thousand dollars from our operating account to buy a diamond tennis bracelet for a twenty-two-year-old influencer?!” Arthur roared, slamming his fist onto the table so hard the salt shaker bounced.
“It was an investment!” Jason yelled back, his voice cracking with sheer desperation. He looked like a cornered animal, his designer shirt wrinkled, his hair greasy, and his eyes bloodshot. “The brand deal was supposed to blow up our social media presence! It was marketing!”
“Marketing?!” Barbara shrieked, grabbing a fistful of Jason’s collar and shaking him back and forth across the table. “You spent our retirement money—the money we got from selling our family home—on a skank while we were sleeping on your floor?! You told us you were a multi-millionaire! You told us we were moving into a penthouse paid for by your success!”
“I didn't know she was going to give you that address!” Jason protested, swatting his mother’s hands away. “That was her! That was my wife! She set this whole thing up to destroy me!”
Arthur let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “Your wife? Oh, you mean the brilliant woman who legally divorced you yesterday, stripped your assets, and left you holding an eighty-thousand-dollar federal fraud charge? That wife?”
Chloe burst into a fresh wave of hysterics, burying her face in her arms on the sticky table. “We have nowhere to go! Our house is sold! All our furniture is in a storage unit that we can't afford! We're homeless because of your stupid lies!”
Jason slumped back into the vinyl booth, the fight entirely draining out of him. The walls were closing in from every direction. His mother despised him, his sister was ruined, his business partner was sending him to prison, and his mistress had already blocked his number and driven off in an Uber with three of his designer watches she had swiped from the nightstand.
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He pulled out his phone with a shaking hand, his thumb hovering over my contact name. But when he tapped it, a chilling automated message popped up: This number is no longer in service.
I hadn't just blocked him. I had changed my number, packed a single suitcase, and checked into a five-star boutique hotel downtown under my maiden name, watching the world burn from a very safe distance.
