Chapter 12 - The Ghost from the High-Rise
I stared at the glowing screen of my phone as the text message sat there like a ticking bomb. The name 'Chloe' wasn't displayed, but the frantic, panicked rhythm of the punctuation marks gave her away instantly. For months, there had been complete silence from that side of the family. After Richard’s arrest and the sudden, catastrophic collapse of his corporate empire—triggered entirely by Ethan quietly handing over a flash drive of corporate embezzlement files to the federal authorities—they had vanished into the gated communities and legal bunkers of the ultra-wealthy.
Ethan noticed the sudden stillness in my posture. He stopped typing, his dark eyes shifting from his laptop screen to my face.
"Who is it?" he asked, his voice dropping into a calm, protective register that made him sound decades older than his years.
"It’s your aunt Chloe," I answered honestly, sliding the phone across the table so he could read the message for himself.
Ethan glanced at the screen, his expression hardening into stone. There was no fear in his eyes, no lingering trauma from the day she had publicly degraded him at her baby shower. There was only cold, unbothered indifference.
"She made her bed, Mom," Ethan said quietly, turning his laptop back toward himself. "Let her lie in it."
"I know, baby," I replied, reaching out to tap the screen and block the number. "I have no intention of saving someone who spent her whole life trying to push us off the cliff."
Just as I hit the block button, a sharp knock echoed from the front porch. It wasn’t a polite tap. It was the frantic, heavy pounding of someone desperate enough to tear the wooden door off its hinges. Ethan stood up instantly, but I held up a hand, stepping past him.
May you like
"Stay here," I said.
I walked down the small hallway, took a deep breath, and pulled the front door open. Standing on our modest porch, disheveled, makeup streaked down her cheeks, and wearing a wrinkled designer trench coat that looked like it had been slept in for a week, was Chloe.
