Chapter 5 - The Subpoena and the Surprise
Two weeks passed in a blur of legal depositions, bank statements, and sudden, shocking peace. Luke remained locked up in the federal detention center downtown, bail having been promptly denied due to extreme flight risk—especially after the FBI discovered he had booked two first-class tickets to Zurich using a secondary passport the night before the birthday party.
Chloe had wisely vanished, deleting all her social media accounts and fleeing the state before prosecutors could subpoena her as an unindicted co-conspirator in the money-laundering scheme.
I was sitting at my small kitchen laptop, reviewing the preliminary asset-recovery payout estimates sent over by Julian’s firm, when a sharp knock echoed against the front door.
Frowning, I stood up and walked to the entryway. We didn't get many visitors anymore, save for the occasional delivery driver.
I unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open.
Standing on the porch wasn't a delivery driver. It was Luke’s mother—my former mother-in-law, Evelyn Vance.
Evelyn looked entirely different from the impeccably groomed, haughty matriarch who used to sneer at my modest clothing during family dinners. Her hair was messy, her eyes rimmed with red from crying, and her designer coat was rumpled as if she had slept in it.
"Clara," Evelyn choked out, her voice trembling violently. "Please... please, you have to help me."
I crossed my arms over my chest, leaning against the doorframe, feeling zero warmth or pity for the woman who had spent years enabling her son's toxic narcissism. "Help you with what, Evelyn? Luke's trial hasn't even started yet."
"It's not about Luke," Evelyn wept, clutching her leather handbag to her chest. "Well, it is, but... Clara, the federal government has seized the family trust account. They claim that thirty percent of the capital Luke inherited from his grandfather was commingled with the embezzled funds. They've frozen my home. They've seized my bank accounts. I'm sixty-eight years old, Clara, and I literally have five dollars to my name and nowhere to sleep tonight."
I stared at her, feeling a strange mixture of pity and cold detachment. "That's terrible, Evelyn. But why are you coming to me? I don't control the Department of Justice."
"You can talk to Julian Vance!" Evelyn sobbed, stepping forward, desperate to grab my hand. I backed up just an inch, avoiding her touch. "Everyone in legal circles knows you two are close. If you just tell him to release the freeze on my personal pension fund, I can get back on my feet! Please, Clara! We were family!"
"Family?" I echoed, letting out a dry, bitter laugh. "Evelyn, when Luke threw me out onto the street with two hundred dollars in my checking account and told me to starve, where was your family loyalty? When you watched him parade his twenty-five-year-old mistress around town while my son was still in diapers, where was your family loyalty?"
Evelyn flinched as if she had been physically struck. Tears spilled over her cheeks, cutting tracks through her powder. "I know... I know we failed you. I know we enabled him. But please... have mercy."
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"I am having mercy, Evelyn," I said quietly, unlocking the door fully. "I'm not pressing charges against you for the slanderous things you said about me in court affidavits. But as for your money? That's between you, the federal government, and Julian Vance's forensic team."
Without another word, I gently closed the front door in her face, hearing her muffled, pathetic sobs echo from the porch before her footsteps faded down the driveway.
