Chapter 5 - Stripping the Crown
The eviction of Victoria Sinclair was executed with the precision of a military operation.
Within forty-inutes, two private security guards stood at the front entrance of the mansion, holding large industrial trash bags.
Victoria had gone from screaming obscenities to weeping hysterically, frantically calling her father, Senator Sinclair, to demand he intervene and crush me with his political weight. But the moment Senator Sinclair’s chief of staff realized that Ethan Cole—the billionaire civil engineer whose firm funded half the state’s urban infrastructure projects and campaign super-PACS—was moving to completely sever ties due to domestic abuse and cruelty, the Senator’s office went radio silent.
In modern American politics, a billionaire pulling campaign funding is a death sentence. Senator Sinclair didn't rush to his daughter's defense; instead, his office issued a brief, cold statement to the press stating that the Senator was currently out of the country and would not comment on private family matters.
Victoria stood in the grand foyer, surrounded by her hastily packed designer clothes, Louboutin shoes, and Chanel bags stuffed haphazardly into trash bags by the guards.
“Ethan! Please! Look at me!” she sobbed, rushing toward the stairs as I stood on the landing watching her downfall. “We can fix this! I was just… I was stressed! Your mother is difficult! It was a joke gone wrong! Please don’t do this to me!”
I walked slowly down the stairs, stopping three steps from the bottom, looking down at the woman who had terrorized my mother for half a year.
“When my mother was raising me alone in a drafty apartment with no heat, she never once joked about abandoning me,” I said quietly. “When she worked double shifts doing laundry so I could afford my first computer, she never once treated a human being like an animal.”
I gestured to the guards.
“Escort her off the property. And make sure her father’s chauffeurs pick up her bags at the front gates. She is no longer welcome on this land.”
“You’ll pay for this, Ethan Cole!” Victoria shrieked, her mask of elite elegance completely shattering into pure, venomous hatred as the guards grabbed her arms and physically dragged her out the front doors. “You’re just a low-class construction worker! You’ll never be one of us! You’ll die alone!”
The heavy oak doors slammed shut, cutting off her screams.
The silence that followed was heavy, profound, and absolute.
I stood in the foyer of my massive, empty mansion. For a long moment, the scale of my success felt hollow. Billions of dollars, towering skyscrapers, glittering awards—none of it meant a damn thing if I couldn't protect the one person who mattered.
I climbed the stairs, walked down the corridor, and gently knocked on my mother’s door.
“Mom?” I called out softly.
The door creaked open. Margaret stood there, her eyes still red from crying, looking nervously around the hallway.
“Is… is she gone, son?” she asked quietly.
“She’s gone, Mom,” I said, offering her a gentle, reassuring smile. “And she’s never coming back. This house is yours now. Every single room.”
Margaret let out a long, shuddering sigh, as if a hundred-pound weight had finally been lifted from her tired shoulders. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around my waist, burying her face in my shirt.
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“I’m sorry I caused so much trouble, Ethan,” she whispered.
“You didn’t cause trouble, Mom,” I said, resting my chin on her gray hair as I held her tight. “You taught me how to survive. Now, let me take care of you.”
