Chapter 6 - House of Cards
The fallout was spectacular and entirely self-inflicted.
Within a week, the Morrison family imploded. Diane, unable to cope with the reality of poverty, turned her venom on the only person left to blame: her son.
In the cramped, two-bedroom apartment they were forced to rent in a rundown neighborhood, the walls echoed with their screaming.
"You fool!" Diane shrieked, throwing a cheap plastic cup across the small kitchen. "You had a billionaire in your bed, and you treated her like the maid! You lost us our empire for that cheap blonde bimbo!"
Brendan, sitting on a stained sofa, gripped his hair, his eyes bloodshot. "Shut up! Just shut up! You’re the one who dumped the water on her! If you hadn’t done that, none of this would have happened!"
"I did it because I thought she was a gold digger!" Diane screamed back. "I was protecting our wealth! Wealth that YOU signed away to save your own skin!"
Their toxic bond, once held together by arrogance and stolen money, shattered. They despised each other. Every day was a miserable reminder of what they had lost. Diane, who once wore diamonds to breakfast, was now forced to clip coupons and ride the bus. Brendan, the former hotshot executive, was working the night shift at a logistics warehouse just to make rent—a warehouse, ironically, owned by a shell company under Sterling International.
Every box he lifted, every minimum-wage hour he worked, he was literally paying back his debt to me.
Jessica was long gone, having quickly latched onto a minor real estate agent in another state, completely erasing Brendan from her social media and her memory.
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They were utterly isolated. Nobody from their high-society circle would take their calls. In the world of the ultra-wealthy, money is a shield. When the shield drops, you become invisible. The Morrisons didn't just fall from grace; they ceased to exist.
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