Part 6
The cheap motel room on the outskirts of the city smelled of old cigarettes and desperation.
Tessa sat on the edge of the unmade bed,
her head in her hands,
her expensive dress now wrinkled and stained.
Across the room,
her mother paced back and forth,
her high heels clicking loudly against the worn linoleum floor.
"We have to call someone,"
her mother insisted,
her voice high-pitched and hysterical.
"There must be someone among our old friends who can lend us money!"
"We can’t stay in a place like this,
Arthur!"
"Look at the sheets!"
"They are disgusting!"
Arthur sat in a plastic chair by the window,
staring out at the neon sign that flickered through the grimy glass.
"Our friends aren't answering,
Eleanor,"
he said,
his voice hollow and completely defeated.
"I called five of them this morning."
"The moment they heard my name,
they hung up."
"The news about the airport is already spreading through the social circles."
"Clara made sure of that."
"We are social pariahs by now."
Tessa looked up,
her eyes red and swollen from hours of crying.
"This is all Daniel’s fault!"
she screamed,
throwing a decorative pillow across the room.
"He told me he loved me!"
"He told me we would be running the company together by next month!"
"He said Clara was nothing but an empty shell!"
"And you believed him!"
her mother shouted,
turning on her daughter with a fierce,
accusatory glare.
"You encouraged this,
Tessa!"
"You wanted the penthouse,
the clothes,
the prestige!"
"You didn't care about your sister at all!"
"Neither did you!"
Tessa shrieked,
standing up to face her mother.
"You were the one who recorded that horrible message!"
"You were the one who said she was too weak!"
"Don't try to play the innocent victim now,
mother!"
"You wanted her gone just as much as I did!"
"Stop it,
both of you!"
Arthur roared,
slamming his hand down on the small wooden table,
cracking the fragile veneer.
"Arguments won't solve anything!"
"We are broke!"
"Do you understand that?"
"The bank accounts are frozen,
the credit lines are cancelled,"
"and by tomorrow,
the mortgage on our house will be defaulted."
"We have nothing left because we trusted that snake Daniel."
"Can’t we talk to Clara?"
Tessa pleaded,
stepping closer to her father,
her voice dropping to a desperate whisper.
"She is your daughter,
dad."
"She used to love us."
"If we go to her,
if we beg for her forgiveness,
if we tell her Daniel forced us into this—"
"She won't listen,"
Arthur interrupted,
his head dropping into his hands.
"You didn't see her face at the airport,
Tessa."
"There was no love left in her eyes."
"There was nothing but ice."
"We didn't just break her trust,"
"we tried to steal the company she built to honor her lost child."
"She will never forgive us for that."
The room fell into a heavy,
miserable silence,
broken only by the buzzing of the cheap neon light outside.
They were trapped in a prison of their own making,
surrounded by the consequences of their limitless greed.
And as the night wore on,
the reality of their total ruin began to settle over them like a suffocating blanket.
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They had traded a devoted daughter and sister for a promise of unearned wealth,
and now they had absolutely nothing to show for it.
