Chapter 6 - THE MOTHER’S COLLAPSE
By 2:00 PM, Vivian Harrington was sitting on a stained vinyl chair in the lobby of the Royal Oak Inn—a twenty-five-dollar-a-night roadside motel three miles outside the city limits.
Her silk robe was filthy at the hem from walking across the slushy parking lot. Her diamond necklace was hidden beneath a cheap coat she had bought at a nearby gas station using the last forty dollars of cash in her purse.
When Graham stumbled through the glass doors of the motel lobby, looking like a ghost that had been dragged through a gutter, Vivian jumped to her feet.
"Graham!" she cried out, grabbing his lapels. "Did you fix it?! Did you speak to the board?! Where is the lawyer? Where are our cars?!"
Graham looked at his mother with dead, vacant eyes. The man who had spent his entire life seeking her approval, adopting her snobbery, and enacting her cruelty now looked at her with pure, unadulterated hatred.
"It was her," Graham rasped, his voice hollow.
Vivian blinked, confused. "What? Who?"
"Evelyn," Graham said, a hysterical laugh bubbling up from his chest. "The cheap little designer. The seamstress. The parasite you told me to throw into the street."
"What are you talking about, Graham?!" Vivian snapped, shaking his arm. "Have you lost your mind?! What does that pathetic girl have to do with our assets being frozen?!"
"She owns Vale International, Mom!" Graham screamed suddenly, his voice exploding through the quiet, shabby motel lobby, causing the clerk behind the bulletproof glass to look up in alarm. "She owns Vale International! She owns the house! She owns Harrington Luxe! She owns the clothes on your back! She has eight billion dollars!"
Vivian froze. The color drained from her face so fast that her lipstick looked like a bloody smear against paper-white skin.
"Eight... eight billion?" she whispered, her hands sliding off his coat. "No... no, she was poor. Her shoes were from a department store! She didn't have a car! She—"
"She was testing me!" Graham yelled, tears streaming down his dirty face. "She was testing us! And we failed! We threw her and her babies into a blizzard last night! We threw eight billion dollars into the snow, Mom!"
Vivian stumbled backward, her knees hitting the vinyl chair. "She... she lied to us! That's fraud! We can sue her! Graham, call a lawyer and sue her for deceit!"
Before Graham could answer, the automatic double doors of the motel slid open.
Two men in dark, tailored suits walked into the lobby, flanked by two uniformed officers from the financial crimes division of the state police.
"Graham Harrington? Vivian Harrington?" the lead investigator asked, pulling a gold badge from his belt.
Graham backed away, his hands raised instinctively. "What... what is this?"
"We have an arrest warrant issued by the District Attorney’s office for grand larceny, corporate embezzlement, and criminal fraud," the investigator stated calmly. "Furthermore, Mrs. Vivian Harrington, you are being served with a civil summons regarding $400,000 in unpaid luxury line conversions authorized under fraudulent pretenses."
"You can't arrest me!" Vivian shrieked, backing into the corner of the lobby like a cornered animal. "Do you know who I am?! My grandfather was Lord Harrington!"
"Your grandfather died forty years ago, ma'am, and your bank account has a balance of negative twelve dollars," the officer replied coldly, stepping forward and pulling a pair of steel handcuffs from his belt. "Turn around and put your hands behind your back."
"Graham! Help me!" Vivian screamed as the cold steel snapped around her wrists. "Graham!"
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Graham didn't move. He stood paralyzed as the officers cuffed his mother, then stepped over to him, clicking another set of irons around his wrists.
As they were led out of the shabby motel into the blinding glare of the winter sun, a crowd of local reporters—tipped off by Marcus's public relations team—was already waiting on the sidewalk, flashbulbs exploding like blinding white lightning against the dirty snow.
