Chapter 9 - THE COLLAPSE OF ILLUSIONS
Sabrina Halston sat in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of the city. The penthouse was gone. The sports cars were repossessed. Her husband was in federal prison, and her in-laws blamed her entirely for the catastrophe, cutting off all contact.
She stared at her phone, scrolling through the news. A headline on Forbes glared back at her: THE NEW QUEEN OF HOSPITALITY: EVELYN HART NAMED CEO OF WOLFE-HALSTON GRAND.
Below the headline was a picture of Evelyn from the charity gala, looking radiant, powerful, and utterly untouchable in her burgundy gown. Beside her stood Adrian Wolfe, looking at Evelyn not with cold calculation, but with unmistakable admiration and respect.
Sabrina threw the phone against the wall, shattering the screen.
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She had spent her entire life chasing status, stepping on anyone who got in her way, believing that marrying into a name was a substitute for actual substance. She had poured wine on her best friend to assert dominance, only to trigger the very avalanche that buried her.
Sabrina fell to her knees amidst the cheap cardboard moving boxes, sobbing into her hands. There was no audience. There were no cameras. There was only the quiet, devastating realization that she had gambled everything on an illusion, and she had lost.
