At our lavish engagement party, I watched from the balcony as my fiancée shoved my mother into the decorative fountain.
“Your cheap clothes are ruining my aesthetic,” Celeste laughed, her voice carrying over the orchestra like shattered crystal. Her circle of wealthy friends joined in, covering their mouths with manicured fingers.
I didn’t shout. I didn’t cause a scene. I simply took out my phone and liquidated the ten-million-dollar trust fund I had created for her that same afternoon.
She believed she had trapped an old-money billionaire. She had no idea my empire was forged in the slums—and that I knew exactly how to strip away everything a person held dear.
Advertisements
The splash echoed through the ballroom. My mother, Elena Ruiz, rose from the marble fountain, water streaming from her drenched blue dress—the same one she had worn to my first major award ceremony, altered multiple times because she refused to let me buy her anything new.