CHAPTER 5: The House of Cards Collapses
The descent was brutally fast.
By the end of the week, word of Noah's firing had spread through the city’s corporate gossip mill like wildfire. Without his CEO salary, the lavish lifestyle Sloan demanded became an instant impossibility. The credit cards maxed out. The hotel kicked them out when their card declined.
Desperate, Sloan took to Facebook and Instagram. She went live, tears streaming down her perfectly contoured face, attempting to spin a narrative of victimhood.
"My evil mother-in-law stole my husband's company!" Sloan wept to her 10,000 followers. "She kicked us out on the streets! She's a monster!"
But Raj Vance was prepared. Within an hour of Sloan’s live stream, an anonymous account leaked a security video from the wedding venue to the local press. The footage had no audio, but it didn't need any. It clearly showed Laya standing peacefully, Sloan rearing back and viciously slapping the older woman, and Noah standing by, hands in his pockets, doing absolutely nothing.
The internet did what the internet does best: it destroyed her.
The video went viral within hours. The hashtag #SloanTheSlapper trended locally, then nationally. Sloan’s friends—the shallow socialites she had spent years cultivating—dropped her instantly, terrified of the public relations nightmare. Her modeling agency terminated her contract.
Sitting in a dingy, one-bedroom motel on the outskirts of town, the smell of cheap bleach and stale cigarette smoke filling the air, the newlyweds finally snapped.
"This is your fault!" Sloan screamed, throwing her phone at the wall as another wave of hate comments flooded her inbox. "You told me she was a nobody! You told me she was just a pathetic old woman we could push around!"
Noah sat on the edge of the sagging mattress, his head in his hands. He was unshaven, exhausted, and broken. "She raised me, Sloan. I watched you hit her, and I did nothing. I deserve this."
"Oh, shut up with your whining!" Sloan spat, pacing the stained carpet. "I didn't marry a broke, jobless loser! You need to fix this, or I am calling a divorce lawyer."
Noah slowly looked up at the woman he had sacrificed his mother for. Without the designer clothes, the expensive makeup, and the glamorous backdrop, he finally saw Sloan for what she truly was: an empty, cruel, and profoundly ugly soul.
"Do it," Noah whispered.
Sloan stopped pacing. "What did you say?"
"Call the lawyer," Noah said, his voice gaining a fraction of strength. "I have nothing left for you to take, Sloan. The money is gone. The company is gone. My mother is gone. We have no assets. You want a divorce? You can have it."
Sloan stared at him, her mouth agape. For once, she had no comeback. She grabbed her designer purse, her face twisted in disgust. "You're pathetic."
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She slammed the motel door behind her. Noah didn't go after her. He fell back onto the cheap bed and wept. He wept for his father, for the empire he had squandered, but mostly, he wept for the mother he had betrayed.
Outside, a heavy rain began to fall, washing the grime of the city away.
