Chapter 7 - Demolition and Debris
The next forty-eight hours were a blur of desperation, panic, and humiliating realization.
Julian tried to secure a loan, but his credit history was entirely tied to Vance Construction, and his personal accounts were frozen under a pending litigation hold. He tried to call his "influential" friends—the venture capitalists, the young actors, the tech entrepreneurs who had happily drunk his expensive champagne for years.
Suddenly, everyone was too busy to talk.
Word travels fast in Los Angeles, especially when it involves a wealthy family’s violent downfall. A rumor had already begun to circulate through the elite social clubs: Julian Vance had brutally assaulted his elderly mother to steal her real estate empire, and she had fought back by cutting him off completely.
To the high-society crowd, Julian was no longer a glamorous young heir; he was radioactive.
By Thursday morning, the grand Beverly Hills mansion was a disaster zone. Chloe had spent the night packing her designer dresses into trash bags, weeping and screaming at Julian with every suitcase she filled. The smug, elegant woman who had watched my beating with such amusement was gone, replaced by a frantic, disheveled creature who realized her golden ticket had just expired.
At 11:55 AM, five minutes before the eviction deadline, a black SUV pulled up to the front gate.
Julian and Chloe stood on the driveway, surrounded by a mountain of mismatched suitcases and garbage bags. They had no car, no money for a moving company, and nowhere to go. They had been forced to use the last of Julian's cash to rent a cheap, dilapidated apartment in an industrial section of Glendale.
The door of the SUV opened, and Evelyn Vance-Cole stepped out. Behind her, two large security guards in black suits stood at attention.
Julian took a step forward, his eyes desperate. "Evelyn! Please, you have to talk to Mom. Tell her I'm sorry! Tell her it was a mistake! I lost my temper... I was stressed about the business..."
Evelyn stopped ten feet away from him, her eyes scanning his disheveled clothes and Chloe’s tear-streaked face with a look of profound disgust.
"Your mother is not interested in your apologies, Julian," Evelyn said, her voice cold and hollow. "You didn't just lose your temper. You counted thirty punches. You watched her bleed, and you laughed."
"I was drunk!" Julian cried.
"Your father was a good man, Julian," Evelyn said softly. "He died with nothing, but he left behind a legacy of honor. You have nothing of him in you. You are a parasite."
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She turned to the security guards. "Lock the gates. If either of them steps foot on this property again, call the police immediately."
As the heavy iron gates of the Beverly Hills mansion swung shut with a loud, metallic clang, Julian fell to his knees on the asphalt. The sun beat down on his neck, hot and unforgiving, and for the first time in his life, he realized that the ground beneath his feet was completely gone.
