Her friends tittered, a chorus of vapid, enabling laughter that grated against my nerves like sandpaper on glass.
“You stole my iPad, Beatrice,” I said. My voice wasn’t loud. It was the low, steady rumble of an approaching earthquake. “And you used my private concierge account to book a forty-eight-thousand-dollar vacation to the Maldives.”
Beatrice scoffed, waving a manicured hand dismissively at the camera. “Oh, don’t be so terribly dramatic. I simply borrowed the tablet. It was left in a common area. And as for the trip, consider it a long-overdue royalty payment. My Julian works his soul to the bone creating masterpieces that elevate your drab, corporate existence. It’s only fair his mother gets to celebrate his latest gallery triumph. He told me to treat my friends. He’s providing for us finally.”
She actually believed it. She had ingested her own delusions for so long that they had become her reality. Or perhaps it was more convenient to believe the lie than to admit she was a thief.
“Julian didn’t provide this,” I said, leaning forward, ensuring my face was perfectly framed in the center of her screen. “Julian has never provided anything. I own the Brooklyn studio. I own the penthouse. I paid for the gallery space, the critics, and the bronze he wastes. Your son is a financial void, Beatrice. A black hole in a designer turtleneck.”
The confident smirks on the faces of Muffy and Bunny began to falter. They exchanged nervous, sideways glances. They knew the “Sterling Fortune” was a myth, but they had hoped the party would last through the weekend.
“How dare you speak about his art that way!” Beatrice snapped, her face flushing beneath her wide-brimmed sun hat. “You are just jealous that you lack his creative soul! You deal in rectangles, Elena. He deals in truth!”
“I am a lot of things, Beatrice, but jealous of a man living in a rented basement is not one of them,” I replied smoothly.
“A basement? What are you babbling about?” Beatrice’s voice hitched, a sudden, sharp note of genuine panic piercing her arrogant facade.
“I am talking about the fact that Julian and I have been legally separated for three weeks,” I stated, the words landing like heavy steel beams dropping onto concrete. “I caught him with his ‘muse’ in my bed. Because of the infidelity clause in our ironclad prenuptial agreement, Julian walked away with absolutely nothing. No alimony. No studio. No allowance. Right now, he’s probably packing his rusted metal into a U-Haul headed for a storage unit in Queens.”
The silence on the other end of the line was absolute. The soft lapping of the Maldivian waves against the stilts of the villa suddenly sounded incredibly loud, like a countdown.
“You’re lying,” Beatrice whispered, the color draining entirely from her face. Her friends physically recoiled from her, sensing the immense, catastrophic debt suddenly looming over the daybed. “Julian would have told me! He said he was negotiating a major commission in Singapore!”
“He didn’t tell you because he is too humiliated to admit he is broke,” I said, a dark, cold satisfaction spreading through my chest. “He doesn’t have forty-eight thousand dollars, Beatrice. He doesn’t even have forty-eight dollars. You didn’t spend his money. You committed wire fraud and grand larceny against my corporation. And Marcus at Aura is very, very protective of my accounts.”
“Elena… please,” she stammered, her eyes darting frantically to her friends, who were already silently gathering their silk sarongs and designer tote bags. “This is a mistake. We can fix this. Just let me enjoy the week, and Julian will pay you back from his next commission. I’ll make him give you a sculpture!”
“Julian hasn’t sold a piece of art in five years, and I don’t use rusted scrap metal as currency,” I reminded her mercilessly. “I don’t negotiate with thieves. I demolish them.”
I held my phone up to the computer camera so she could see the Aura Lifestyle Management portal glowing on my desktop monitor. My cursor was hovering directly over a red button labeled EMERGENCY ACCOUNT FREEZE & CANCEL ALL ITINERARIES.
Beatrice’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. She looked at the red button on the screen, then at the champagne flute in her hand, realizing she was holding a glass of liquid debt.
Chapter III: The Hard Chargeback
“Have a lovely afternoon, Beatrice,” I whispered.
Before she could scream, my finger clicked the mouse.
I didn’t end the FaceTime call immediately. I left the iPad connection open, setting my phone face-down on the desk so I could only hear the audio, like listening to a shipwreck unfolding in real-time. I immediately picked up my office landline and dialed the direct priority number for my Aura Lifestyle manager.
“Elena, darling, it’s Marcus,” the smooth, British voice answered on the first ring. “I see you’re looking at the Maldivian itinerary. Stunning property, isn’t it? I was about to call and ask if you wanted the underwater dining experience booked for Tuesday.”
“Marcus, we have a catastrophic security breach,” I said, slipping instantly into my most commanding executive tone—the one I used when a contractor tried to bill me for subpar materials. “My backup iPad was stolen from my residence. The booking at the Azure Atoll, the flights, the yacht—all of it is fraudulent and entirely unauthorized. The woman currently occupying the villa is my ex-mother-in-law. She committed identity theft and used a cached token.”
I heard the sharp intake of breath on the other end, followed immediately by the rapid, frantic clicking of a mechanical keyboard.
“Good god, Elena. I am so terribly sorry,” Marcus said, his polite demeanor replaced by lethal efficiency. “I am locking down your master account right this second. I am initiating a hard chargeback on the $48,500 authorization. All funds are being yanked back from the resort as we speak. I’m also flagging the secondary card for the incidental deposit.”
“Cancel the return Emirates flights. Cancel the yacht charters,” I instructed. “Do not authorize a single bottle of water on my dime. If she wants to stay, she can pay with her own imaginary fortune.”
“Done and done,” Marcus confirmed. “The resort’s financial department will receive the fraud alert and the immediate hard-decline of the primary card in approximately thirty seconds. I am also notifying Emirates security regarding the fraudulent use of your skywards miles.”
“Thank you, Marcus. Send me the formal fraud affidavit for the NYPD.”
I hung up the landline. I picked my iPhone back up and flipped it over to watch the FaceTime feed.
The scene in the Maldivian villa had devolved into utter chaos. Beatrice’s three friends were aggressively shoving their belongings into luxury suitcases, shouting at each other with a venom that only exists among the upper-middle class when money vanishes.
“I am not going to a foreign prison because of your lies, Beatrice!” Bunny shrieked, slamming a suitcase shut so hard a bottle of expensive lotion shattered inside. “You told us Julian paid for this! You told us the jet was his! You said we were celebrating his ‘Global Visionary’ award!”
