Chapter 9 - The Mother-in-Law’s Eviction
By afternoon, the midtown motel room was a battlefield.
Victoria was sitting on the stained bedspread, surrounded by cheap plastic bags filled with whatever random toiletries she had managed to stuff into her purse before the marshals kicked her out. Brooke was furiously packing her carry-on, shouting obscenities into her cell phone as every single one of her credit cards bounced.
"Stop screaming at me, Brooke!" Victoria shrieked, pressing a cold washcloth to her forehead. "Dominic will be here any minute with the corporate emergency funds! He is the CEO! He will buy us a penthouse at the Plaza! You just need to show some respect to the family that saved you from poverty!"
"Shut up, you delusional old bat!" Brooke screamed back, slamming her suitcase shut. "Dominic isn't the CEO of anything! He's a broke, pathetic mama's boy who got fired this morning! Clara owns everything!"
The motel room door swung open. Dominic staggered in, looking like a ghost. His tie was missing, his designer shirt was stained with sweat and tears, and his eyes were wild and bloodshot.
"Brooke..." Dominic croaked.
Brooke froze. "Dominic? Did you get the cash? Tell me you withdrew the offshore accounts!"
Dominic walked toward her slowly, his fists clenched, his breathing ragged. "Where is Liam's father, Brooke?"
Brooke's face instantly hardened into stone. The sweet, submissive angel vanished, replaced by a cold, venomous sneer. "So the sterile little heiress told you, huh?"
Victoria stood up, baffled. "What are you talking about? Dominic is Liam’s father! He has our family nose! Dominic, what is she saying?"
"He's not my son, Mother!" Dominic roared, turning on Victoria with terrifying ferocity. "She played us! She and Gregory Turner planned the whole thing! I gave away fourteen million dollars for a kid who isn't even mine! And you—you encouraged me to destroy my real son for this whore!"
"A whore?" Brooke laughed loudly, mocking them without fear. "You were so desperate to feel like a big man, Dominic! Clara ran the company, Clara had the money, Clara had the brains, and you were just a useless trophy! You gave me everything because I stroked your pathetic ego! And guess what? Gregory was ten times the man you'll ever be!"
Victoria gasped, lunging toward Brooke with her manicured nails bared. "You filthy, thieving gutter rat! I gave you my mother's heirloom sapphire! Give it back!"
The two women collided, screaming and pulling hair, knocking over cheap lamps and plastic motel chairs.
Before Dominic could intervene, the motel door was kicked inward with thunderous force.
"NYPD! Nobody move! Hands where we can see them!"
Four armed detectives and two social workers entered the room, guns drawn. Detective Ramirez, lead investigator on the child endangerment case, stepped forward with a pair of steel handcuffs.
"Victoria Vance? Dominic Vance?" Ramirez barked. "You are both under arrest for child abuse, criminal neglect, and endangering the welfare of a minor."
Victoria fell to the dirty motel floor, wailing like a banshee. "I'm a Vance! You can't put handcuffs on me! I have high blood pressure! Call my physician!"
"Save the performance for Rikers Island, ma'am," Ramirez said, brutally pinning Victoria’s arms behind her back.
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Brooke tried to slip past the officers toward the bathroom, but another detective blocked her path. "Brooke Ellis? Don't even think about it. You're being detained for grand larceny and criminal conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The feds are waiting for you downstairs."
As the handcuffs clicked shut around Dominic’s wrists, he looked up through his tears, catching his own reflection in the motel’s cracked mirror. He had traded an empire, an honorable name, and a loving family for an illusion. And now, the nightmare was his only reality.
