Chapter 6 - The Golden Child's Collapse
By three o'clock that afternoon, a heavy winter sleet had begun to fall over Brookline, turning the pristine snow into dirty, freezing slush.
At the end of Woodland Way, behind soaring twelve-foot wrought-iron security gates, the Vance-Sterling Manor sat like a fortress of stone and slate. Ancient oak trees lined the private driveway, and discreet security cameras scanned the perimeter from brick pillars topped with stone gargoyles.
Outside the closed iron gates, a yellow city cab pulled to the curb, its engine sputtering in the freezing rain.
The doors opened, and four broken figures emerged.
Wallace looked like an old, ruined ghost. His expensive coat was soaked through with sleet, his dress shoes ruined, his shoulders slumped in utter defeat. Estelle clung to his arm, shivering violently in her mink coat, her mascara running in black streaks down her wrinkled cheeks.
Cecilia and Preston stumbled out behind them, their faces pale, their eyes wide with manic, desperate energy.
"Is this it?" Wallace rasped, staring through the iron bars at the majestic stone mansion sitting three hundred yards up the private hill. "This is where he lives?"
"Yes," Cecilia said, her voice shaking as she grabbed the cold iron bars of the gate with her bare hands. "This is it. Dad, remember what we agreed. No shouting. No pride. You have to apologize. You have to tell him you were wrong about the glass. You have to tell him you love Margot."
"Apologize?" Wallace muttered, though there was no fight left in him. His voice sounded like cracked dry leaves. "I... I smashed a glass on him, Cecilia. I called him a leech. In front of that little girl."
"You have to fix it!" she screamed at him, turning on her father with wild, terrified eyes. "Do you understand me?! Lumina is being liquidated on Friday! My entire life is over if he doesn't sign that waiver! Swallow your damn pride and get on your knees if you have to!"
Preston rushed toward the heavy brass intercom mounted on the stone pillar beside the gate. He hit the call button frantically.
*Buzz.*
A crisp, professional voice answered immediately. "Vance-Sterling private residence. State your business."
"Hello! Hello!" Preston shouted into the speaker, his teeth chattering from the cold. "We’re family! We are Desmond Sterling’s family! Wallace Sterling is here, his father! And Cecilia, his sister! We need to see Desmond! Please, open the gate! It's an emergency!"
A brief pause followed. The sound of rain clicking against the stone pillar filled the agonizing silence.
"Hold position," the security voice replied.
Two minutes later, the side pedestrian door of the stone gatehouse opened.
Julian Vance stepped out into the freezing sleet. He was dressed impeccably in a long black wool overcoat, holding a massive black umbrella that shielded him completely from the weather. Behind him walked two imposing private security officers in tactical gear, their eyes scanning the four shivering family members with cold detachment.
"Julian!" Cecilia cried out, rushing toward the gate, pressing her face against the iron bars. "Julian, please! You remember me from the phone! We need to see my brother! Just five minutes! Please, let us in!"
Julian stopped two feet from the gate, looking at them through his silver-rimmed glasses. His expression was as warm as a glacier.
"Mr. Desmond Sterling is currently spending the afternoon with his daughter," Julian said smoothly. "He is not receiving visitors."
"I am his father!" Wallace bellowed, taking a stumbling step forward, his voice cracking. "You tell him his father is standing in the rain! You tell him Estelle is out here freezing! He can't leave his own mother in the street like a stray dog!"
"Mr. Wallace Sterling," Julian replied, his voice calm, measured, and devastatingly precise. "You ceased to be Mr. Desmond Sterling’s father the moment you shattered a crystal glass against his spine in front of an eight-year-old child."
Estelle let out a strangled sob, dropping to her knees in the wet slush, clutching the bottom of the iron gate. "Julian... please... tell Desmond I'm sorry! I should have stopped Wallace! I should have hugged Margot! Please, tell him we have nowhere to go! The sheriff locked us out of Dover! We don't have our clothes! We don't have our money!"
Julian looked down at Estelle, his eyes entirely devoid of sympathy. He pulled a thick leather folio from beneath his coat and opened it.
"I have something to show you," Julian said.
He pulled out a laminated master balance sheet and held it against the iron bars so Cecilia and Wallace could see the printed figures.
"Over the last seven years," Julian explained, turning the page slowly, "Desmond Sterling personally subsidized your family’s existence to the amount of eighty-eight million, four hundred and twenty thousand dollars. He paid sixty-four thousand dollars a year for Margot’s cousins' private school tuitions. He paid the four-hundred-thousand-dollar annual maintenance fee on the Dover estate. He absorbed seventeen million dollars in operational losses for Lumina Dynamics. He personally guaranteed seventy-two foreign vehicle imports for the Preston Automotive Group."
Julian looked up from the paper, his gaze locking onto Cecilia’s hollow, horrified eyes.
"And during those seven years," Julian continued, "our office maintained a comprehensive log of every family gathering. At Thanksgiving three years ago, Wallace called Desmond a 'disappointing mistake' because he arrived in an older car. At Christmas two years ago, Cecilia gave Margot an envelope containing fifty dollars and told her she looked like a charity case from an orphanage. And four days ago, Cecilia, you told an eight-year-old motherless child that she was cheap and undisciplined because she dropped a silver fork."
Cecilia covered her mouth, her body racking with violent, silent sobs.
"He didn't hide his wealth to trick you, Miss Sterling," Julian said softly. "He hid his wealth because Clara Sterling wanted to give you a chance to love her daughter for nothing. She wanted Margot to have a family that loved her without a price tag. And you proved, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you are incapable of love. You only understand transaction."
"Where is he?" Wallace choked out, tears finally spilling from his bloodshot eyes, mixing with the freezing rain on his cheeks. "Where is my son? Let me see him! Desmond!"
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Wallace began shaking the heavy iron gates with both hands, screaming into the grey afternoon sky. "DESMOND! DESMOND, LOOK AT ME! I'M SORRY! DESMOND, PLEASE!"
***
