Chapter 5 - The Parasites Crumble
While Tyler sat in his former office sobbing as he signed away every piece of intellectual property he had ever claimed to own, his mother and sister were experiencing their own reckoning.
At the La Quinta Inn near O'Hare Airport, Diane Caldwell was furiously trying to check out of their small, damp room.
"What do you mean the card is declined?!" Diane shrieked at the twenty-year-old front desk clerk. "My son is the CEO of ApexGrid! He is worth millions!"
"Ma'am," the clerk said flatly, not even looking up from his screen. "The card declined. We need a valid credit card for the room charge and the thirty-dollar parking fee, or we're holding your luggage."
Kelsey, standing in the lobby holding her designer handbag—a gift Tyler had bought her using his corporate card—was scrolling through her phone. Suddenly, her phone chimed with a bank notification.
She opened it and let out a blood-curdling scream.
"Mom!" Kelsey cried, clutching her hair. "My car! My BMW! The bank just repossessed it from my driveway in Naperville!"
Diane turned, her eyes wide with terror. "What?! Why?!"
"The lease!" Kelsey sobbed. "Tyler was paying the monthly lease payments through his company account! The bank said the payments were flagged as fraudulent and recalled the vehicle!"
Before Diane could process her daughter's panic, her own phone rang.
It was her landlord from her luxury townhouse in Lincoln Park.
"Diane," the landlord said, his tone sharp and unyielding. "I just received an official notice from Sterling Capital Legal. The primary lease guarantor for your townhouse, ApexGrid Inc., has revoked its guaranty due to corporate bankruptcy. You have forty-eight hours to provide a personal proof of income equal to three times the monthly rent of six thousand dollars, or an eviction notice will be served."
"Six thousand dollars?!" Diane screamed into the receiver. "I don't have six thousand dollars! I'm a retired widow!"
"Then I suggest you start packing, Diane," the landlord said, hanging up the phone.
Diane dropped her phone onto the carpeted floor of the motel lobby.
For two years, she had bragged to all her friends at the country club about her son's incredible wealth. She had boasted about his Maybach, his Gold Coast high-rise, his ability to treat her to six-hundred-dollar steak dinners and five-star vacations. She had openly mocked Nora, treating my quiet nature as a sign of weakness, taking delight in reminding me that I was "lucky" her brilliant son had married me.
And now, in a single morning, the house of cards had completely collapsed.
There was no Maybach. There was no Gold Coast apartment. There was no luxury townhouse in Lincoln Park. There was no BMW.
There was only a destitute, jobless son who was currently being escorted out of his former company by sheriff's deputies, carrying his personal belongings in a cardboard box.
When Tyler finally arrived at the motel two hours later, taking a city bus because he didn't even have enough cash for an Uber, he found his mother and sister sitting on their suitcases in the parking lot, crying in the rain.
Tyler dropped his cardboard box onto the wet asphalt.
Diane rushed toward him, grabbing his wet coat sleeves. "Tyler! What happened?! Fix this! Call Nora! Tell her we're sorry! Tell her it was a misunderstanding!"
Tyler looked at his mother, his eyes completely dead, his voice hollow.
"Nora's father is worth four billion dollars, Mom," Tyler said quietly. "She didn't need my money. I was living on her father's pocket change."
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Diane staggered back, her hand flying to her mouth. "Four... four billion?"
"And she isn't coming back," Tyler whispered, looking up at the gray Chicago sky as the cold rain washed over his face. "She's never coming back."
