Chapter 365
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Chapter 365:
“That is the last ride the Schneider estate will ever pay for,” the lawyer stated. He turned his back and walked away.
Elouise sat on the wet grass, chest heaving. The humiliation burned her skin like acid.
She forced herself to stand. The cab driver did not get out to help her. Elouise dragged the heavy Louis Vuitton trunks to the back of the car herself.
As she hoisted the last bag, her acrylic nail caught on the metal latch and snapped entirely backward. A sharp, blinding pain shot up her finger. Dark red blood welled up from the nail bed, dripping onto her expensive skirt. She bit her lip so hard she tasted copper, forcing the tears back down.
The cab drove into Manhattan and pulled up to a massive, century-old townhouse on the Upper East Side.
Elouise paid the driver with the last fifty-dollar bill in her purse. She dragged her bags up the marble steps and pressed the brass doorbell.
The heavy mahogany door opened. The elderly butler, who had bowed to her for thirty years, now kept his eyes firmly fixed on the floor and opened the door only halfway.
Elouise shoved her shoulder against the wood and forced her way into the grand foyer.
𝖳𝗵e be𝘀𝗍 𝗿𝗲ad𝗶n𝗴 e𝗑𝗉𝗲rіе𝗇с𝖾 𝗈𝘯
She walked straight into the main parlor. Her father, Arthur Stein, sat on a tufted Chesterfield sofa, slowly swirling a glass of expensive single malt whiskey. Standing by the marble fireplace was her younger brother, Richard.
Richard looked at her ruined clothes and bleeding finger. He let out a loud, unapologetic scoff of pure disgust.
Elouise fell to her knees in front of her father.
“Arthur, please,” she sobbed, tears finally spilling over her mascara-stained cheeks. “Robert threw me out. He left me with nothing. I need you to open the family trust. I need to hire the best divorce lawyers in the city p>
Arthur Stein stopped swirling his glass. He slammed the heavy crystal down onto the marble coffee table. The sharp crack of glass against stone made Elouise flinch.
“The Schneider family is bankrupt,” Arthur stated, his voice a cold, empty void. “You have absolutely zero value to this family anymore. You are a liability p>
Richard stepped forward, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You failed to properly manage your primary asset,” Richard sneered, his voice a silken, condescending drawl. “Jocelyn is now a Collins. She represents the single greatest strategic opportunity this family has seen in a generation. And because of your maternal incompetence, the Steins have absolutely no access to that capital p>
Elouise stared at her own flesh and blood. Her stomach twisted into violent knots.
She finally understood the terrifying truth. In this old-money family, blood meant absolutely nothing. There was only leverage.
“You forced me to marry Robert!” Elouise screamed, her voice shaking with rage. “You sold me to him for a board seat p>
“It was a merger, Elouise. A strategic alliance,” Richard corrected her coolly, looking down his nose at her as if she were a poorly performing stock. “And your return on investment has been, to put it mildly, catastrophic p>