Chapter 10 - The Last Remnant
A year and a half after the Plaza Hotel incident.
The afternoon sun was setting over a modest suburban neighborhood in southern Indiana, casting long shadows across the cracked concrete of a small, two-bedroom ranch house.
Isabella Thorne sat on the steps of her parents' porch, wearing a faded cotton dress, her hair tied back in a messy ponytail. Her nails were unmanicured, her face free of makeup, showing the sharp lines of stress and premature aging that eighteen months of social exile and legal ruin had carved into her skin.
She opened a local newspaper, her eyes landing on the lifestyle section.
There was a full-page feature story with a large, beautiful photograph.
The picture showed Olivia Vance standing on the deck of a sleek sixty-foot yacht in Lake Michigan, wearing a simple linen dress, holding her beautiful, dark-haired one-year-old daughter, Victoria. Beside her stood Kane Vance, smiling brightly, surrounded by executives and international dignitaries.
The headline read: OLIVIA VANCE: THE BILLIONAIRE CEO REDEFINING AMERICAN INDUSTRY AND PHILANTHROPY.
Isabella stared at the photograph for a long, painful minute.
She remembered the Plaza Hotel ballroom. She remembered the thrill she had felt when she drove that glass of red wine into Olivia’s dress, the cruel satisfaction of watching the quiet, modest woman stand there covered in red stain while everyone laughed.
She had thought Olivia was nobody. She had thought Olivia was a weak, nameless pawn she could smash to secure her own climb up the social ladder.
Now, Isabella lived on an eight-hundred-dollar monthly stipend from a local retail job, her name permanently blacklisted from every corporate firm in North America, her former high-society friends refusing to acknowledge her existence.
A gust of wind caught the newspaper, blowing a corner of the page over.
May you like
Isabella looked up into the gray, empty street of the small town, letting out a long, hollow sigh. She pulled her thin cardigan around her shoulders, shivering as the cold autumn air settled over the porch.
The wine she had thrown had stained her own life forever.
