Chapter 5 - Chloe's Digital Execution
The sun did not rise on Westchester County the next morning so much as it exposed the wreckage.
By 7:00 AM, the internet had done what the internet does best: it had smelled blood in the water and transformed into an unstoppable, ravenous swarm.
Chloe Carter sat on the edge of a cheap vinyl chair in a twenty-four-hour diner three miles outside the gates of the Glenwood Country Club. She had spent the night in her Mercedes, parked behind an abandoned strip mall, terrified to go back to the Bedford estate after the marshals had arrived with their blue jackets and clipboard warrants.
Her phone, which she had finally turned back on out of sheer desperation, was vibrating so violently against the Formica tabletop that it was slowly sliding toward the sugar dispenser.
Every notification was an execution notice.
*Notification: Revolve has terminated your Brand Ambassador agreement effective immediately pursuant to Morals Clause Section 8(b).*
*Notification: Sephora North America has removed your creator tag.*
*Notification: Elite Model Management has updated your representation status: INACTIVE.*
Chloe tapped the screen with a trembling, manicured finger that had already lost two of its acrylic extensions during the chaos of the night.
Her Instagram account—the digital temple she had spent seven years and hundreds of thousands of dollars of my stolen money building—was unrecognizable.
Her follower count had dropped from fifty-two thousand to under eighteen thousand in twelve hours, but that wasn't the worst of it. The comment section under her most recent sponsored post for an Italian handbag company had exploded into an inferno of public humiliation.
Over forty thousand comments.
*“Bullying a three-week-old baby? What kind of demon does that?”*
*“Look at her calling someone else’s child a bastard when her entire family was living off stolen trust money!”*
*“The Blackwood legal team just filed a ten-million-dollar defamation suit against her. She’s completely finished.”*
*“Imagine getting your father’s entire empire liquidated because you wanted twelve hundred likes on a Sunday afternoon. Iconic level of failure.”*
A shadow fell across the booth.
Chloe gasped, looking up, expecting process servers or photographers.
Instead, it was Margaret.
Our mother looked like an apparition from a Victorian asylum. She had washed off her makeup in the bathroom of an Exxon station, leaving dark, greyish rings of residual mascara around her bloodshot eyes. She was wearing an oversized trench coat over her stained Chanel dress, and her South Sea pearls were shoved carelessly into the pocket of her coat.
"Did you reach her?" Margaret croaked, sliding into the booth opposite Chloe. Her hands were shaking so hard she could barely pull a paper napkin from the dispenser to wipe her running nose. "Did you call Elena?"
"She blocked my number, Mom!" Chloe screamed, her voice cracking with hysterical rage. "She blocked my number, she blocked my burner accounts, she blocked my email! Her husband’s lawyers sent a cease-and-desist to my agency! I've been dropped by everyone! I have forty-eight dollars in my checking account!"
Margaret stared at her younger daughter, her mouth open. "Forty-eight dollars? Don't be absurd. Use your Black Card."
"The card was declined at the gas station, Mom!" Chloe shrieked, slamming her palms onto the table. Several truck drivers at the counter turned to stare at them. Chloe lowered her voice to a furious, venomous whisper. "The Black Card was under the Carter Holdings corporate umbrella! Everything is frozen! The car’s navigation system just flashed an alert saying the Mercedes is scheduled for repossession by noon!"
Margaret’s face crumpled. The aristocratic composure that had defined her entire life—the icy, imperious mask she had worn to charity galas, country club luncheons, and family dinners—shattered into tiny, jagged pieces.
"No," Margaret whispered, clutching her chest. "No, this is a mistake. I am Margaret Carter. My family came over on the Dutch merchant ships. We have a wing named after us at the Westchester Presbyterian Hospital. Elena cannot do this to me. I will go to Greenwich. I will speak to her face to face. A mother has rights!"
"You can't get past the gates, Mom!" Chloe sobbed. "They have armed guards! They have private security with German Shepherds!"
"She will see me," Margaret said, her voice rising with that delusional, frantic arrogance that narcissists cling to even as the ship sinks beneath the waves. "She is my daughter. She came from my womb. She owes me her life. She cannot let her own mother starve."
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Margaret stood up, knocking over her half-empty water glass. She didn't bother to apologize to the waitress. She marched out of the diner into the cold October drizzle, her mind set on a pilgrimage of pure desperation.
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