The rain had just begun to slick the asphalt outside the glass facade of Price & Associates when I cut the ignition.

Three months later.

The auction of the Riverdale mansion was held on a bright, crisp afternoon in late November.

The grand lawn was filled with high-net-worth buyers, real estate developers, and local reporters. The sun glinted off the tall stained-glass windows, illuminating the stone archways that Lorraine had once boasted were imported from an Italian villa.

I stood near the rear terrace, wearing a tailored charcoal coat, holding a cup of hot coffee, watching the auctioneer stand on a podium near the front steps.

A small silver sedan pulled up to the edge of the property line—far beyond the security gates.

From the passenger seat stepped Lorraine Vance.

She looked thirty years older. Her expensive blonde hair was streaked with gray, unstyled and flat. She wore a plain, cheap trench coat over bargain-store clothes. Without her credit cards, her status, and her servants, she was just an angry, frail old woman standing on the roadside, watching her former kingdom be sold to the highest bidder.

She spotted me standing on the terrace and began shuffling up the long driveway, her worn shoes clicking against the gravel.

Our security guards stepped forward to intercept her, but I raised my hand, motioning for them to let her approach.

Lorraine stopped ten feet away from me, her chest heaving, her eyes burning with a desperate, pathetic fury.

"You took everything," Lorraine rasped, her voice dry and thin. "My home. My son's reputation. My place in society. You stripped us down to nothing."

"You did that to yourselves, Lorraine," I answered softly, setting my coffee cup down on a stone balustrade. "You thought money gave you the right to stomp on human beings. You thought because I was quiet, I had no spine."

"Daniel is facing four years in prison!" she wept, dropping all pretense of anger, clutching her hands together in a desperate plea. "Four years, Nora! He won't survive in there! He's a Vance! He wasn't made for prison!"

"He made himself a criminal, Lorraine," I replied firmly. "And as for you... the grand jury indicted you yesterday for identity theft and forged credit applications in my name."

Lorraine froze, her lower lip trembling violently. "Nora... please... I'm an old woman... you wouldn't send your husband's mother to prison..."

"You aren't my mother-in-law anymore," I said, reaching into my coat pocket and pulling out a small, sealed envelope. "The divorce was finalized this morning. And as part of Arthur’s trust provisions, I have set aside a small, monthly stipend for you—contingent upon your pleading guilty, avoiding a trial, and never stepping within five miles of me again."

She looked at the envelope in my hand. It was enough to rent a modest one-bedroom apartment in the suburbs and buy groceries. It was survival, but it was absolute, permanent exile from the world of luxury she had built on cruelty.

"Take it or leave it, Lorraine," I said, holding out the envelope. "Because if you walk away from this table, I will personally ensure the prosecutor asks for maximum sentencing."

With shaking, humiliated fingers, Lorraine reached out and snatched the envelope from my hand, holding it against her chest like a beggar receiving scraps.