Chapter 325
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Chapter 325:
Elouise’s face drained of all color. The thought of begging the daughter she had abused and abandoned made her physically ill. But the fear of poverty was stronger.
An hour later, Jocelyn was at her desk when the phone rang. It was the lobby manager, his voice frantic.
“Ms. Wolfe, your mother is in the lobby again. She is crying hysterically and screaming that she needs to see you. She is making a scene p>
Jocelyn’s eyes turned to chips of ice. The residual warmth from Gaston’s text vanished instantly.
She stood, smoothed her high-collared blouse, and took the private elevator down to the lobby.
When the doors opened, she saw Elouise immediately.
Elouise was on her knees in the center of the marble floor, sobbing loudly, putting on a theatrical display for the wealthy guests moving around her. Jocelyn walked forward, her heels clicking sharply against the stone.
Elouise looked up. “Jocelyn! Please! Your father is going to lose everything! You have to save us p>
Jocelyn stopped five feet away and looked down at the woman who had given birth to her. Because of Gaston’s unyielding protection — and the absolute security he had given her the night before — she felt no fear. No residual trauma. Only a cold, clinical disgust.
“Robert Schneider is not my father,” Jocelyn said. Her voice was perfectly calm, but it carried across the silent lobby like a blade. “And you stopped being my mother a long time ago p>
𝖡е 𝘵𝗁𝗲 𝖿𝘪𝗋𝘀𝘁 𝗍𝗈 𝗿е𝖺𝖽 оո 𝗴𝘢𝗅ոo𝘷еlѕ.𝘤𝘰𝗺
She turned to the security guards standing nearby.
“Throw her out,” Jocelyn said, without a moment’s hesitation. “If she sets foot on my property again, call the police and press charges for trespassing p>
Elouise screamed as the guards took hold of her arms and dragged her toward the revolving doors.
Jocelyn did not watch her leave. She turned, walked back to the elevator, and stepped inside with her spine perfectly straight.
The Schneider family was finally dead to her.
Wednesday night in the SoHo district.
The air inside the exclusive underground cigar bar was thick with blue smoke and the heavy scent of aged scotch.
Kieran Douglas sat alone in a deeply shadowed leather booth. He looked like a corpse. His eyes were sunken, ringed with dark purple, his tie undone, his usually immaculate hair disheveled. Spread across the table in front of him were the latest financial reports. Douglas Tech was bleeding millions by the hour, suffocated by the invisible, crushing weight of the Collins Group’s short-selling campaign.
The heavy wooden door swung open.
Luke, an old friend of Kieran’s from the London banking sector, walked in dragging a small Rimowa suitcase, having just landed at JFK. He spotted Kieran, crossed the room, and slid into the booth.
“Jesus, Kieran,” Luke said, pouring himself a glass of whiskey from the bottle on the table. “You look like you just crawled out of a grave. Is the neon green billboard really hitting you that hard p>
Kieran’s jaw locked. A muscle ticked violently in his cheek.
“Shut your mouth, Luke,” Kieran growled. “Or get out p>
Luke raised his hands in a placating gesture and took a slow sip of his drink.