Chapter 6
Jocelyn turned toward the heavy mahogany front doors. “We’re leaving, Clara.”
“Wait!” Eleanor cried out, lunging across the foyer, her manicured hands catching the edge of Jocelyn’s blazer. “Jocelyn, you cannot walk out of this house and destroy your family! Look at me! I am your mother!”
Jocelyn stopped, looking down at Eleanor’s hands gripping her sleeve. “Let go of me, Eleanor.”
“I carried you for nine months!” Eleanor pleaded, her tears falling freely now, ruining her porcelain foundation. “I gave you a life of luxury! You went to private schools! You had tutors, you had riding lessons! Is this how you repay us? By throwing your parents out of their home in their old age?”
“Repay you?” Jocelyn looked into Eleanor’s pleading eyes, her gaze completely dry, completely hollow. “You didn't give me a life of luxury, Mother. You gave Katherine a stage, and you gave me a front-row seat to watch her perform. When I broke my wrist at twelve, you made me wait four hours in the urgent care because Katherine had a dance recital you couldn't miss.”
“That was an accident! The traffic was terrible!”
“And when David died in Kandahar?” Jocelyn’s voice dropped to a razor’s edge. “When the notification officers arrived at my apartment in uniform to tell me my husband was dead, do you remember what you said to me on the phone?”
Eleanor’s lips trembled. She didn't answer.
“You said, ‘Well, at least you won't have to live on a lieutenant's pension anymore. Now Katherine won't be embarrassed when she introduces you to her board members.’” Jocelyn pulled her arm back with a sharp, dismissive jerk, breaking Eleanor’s grip. “You aren't a mother, Eleanor. You’re a talent manager for a sociopath.”
“Jocelyn, please,” Richard pleaded, stepping forward, his hands open in surrender. The imperious patriarch was gone; in his place stood an old man staring into the abyss of total bankruptcy. “Let’s sit down. Let’s go back into the dining room. We can draft an agreement. I will give you sixty percent of Keller Holdings. We will name you managing partner! Just... call off the bank. Call off Apex.”
“Sixty percent of a bankrupt shell company?” Jocelyn tilted her head, looking at him with genuine pity. “Do you think I’m stupid, Richard? Keller Holdings has eleven million in liabilities and four ongoing labor lawsuits. It’s worth less than the scrap value of your desk.”
“Then what do you want?” Katherine screamed from the staircase, her voice hysterical. “What do you want from us, Jocelyn? Blood? Do you want me to get down on my knees and beg you? Is that what this is about? Humiliating me?”
Jocelyn turned to face her sister.
“I don’t want your begging, Katherine,” Jocelyn said. “Your begging has no market value.”
“Then why are you doing this?!”
“Because five minutes ago, you looked at my daughter and called her a parasite,” Jocelyn said. “And I realized that as long as you have a single dollar to your name, you will believe that you are better than her. You will believe that you have the right to put your hands on her.”
Jocelyn reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone again. She tapped the screen twice.
“Nathan,” Jocelyn said into the speaker.
A new voice answered—calm, precise, and unmistakably dangerous. “Yes, Jocelyn.”
“Send the courier to the district attorney’s office,” Jocelyn ordered. “The unredacted files on Lumina’s clinical data fabrication. All six volumes.”
“No! No, no, no!” Katherine shrieked, tumbling down the bottom three steps as she lunged toward Jocelyn, her heels slipping on the floor. “Don't send those! Jocelyn, that’s criminal fraud! That’s twenty years in Danbury! You can’t send those to the DA!”
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Jocelyn didn't flinch as Katherine fell to her knees at her feet, clawing at Jocelyn’s tailored trousers.
“You should have thought about Danbury before you forged the pediatric toxicity reports, Katherine,” Jocelyn said looking down at her sister. “Did you really think I wouldn't check the chemistry on the drug that killed three children in the Ohio trial?”
