Chapter 9 - The Mother-in-Law’s Greed Backfires
The grand ballroom went so quiet that the faint tinkling of ice melting in champagne buckets sounded like shattering glass.
Beatrice Shiao’s mouth hung open, frozen in a grotesque expression of shock and disbelief. Her heavily powdered cheeks twitched violently, the emerald satin of her gown rustling as her chest heaved in rapid, shallow breaths.
“W-What did you just say?” Beatrice stammered, her high-pitched voice piercing the suffocating silence.
Lady Harrington and Duchess DuPont exchanged wide-eyed, scandalized glances, leaning back in their velvet chairs as if trying to distance themselves from a sudden, toxic detonation. The society photographers, who had been hired to capture Beatrice’s glorious moment of triumph, instinctively raised their heavy telephoto lenses, their shutters clicking in rapid, rhythmic succession.
Flash! Flash! Flash!
“Elena!” Shiaoza screamed, completely abandoning every shred of his polished corporate facade. He lunged across the platform, grabbing for the mahogany box in my hands. “Shut your mouth! How dare you make up such disgusting lies at my mother’s birthday banquet!”
Before his fingers could even graze the velvet box, my private security team moved with terrifying speed.
Two stone-faced officers stepped directly between Shiaoza and me, grabbing him by both arms and twisting them behind his back with effortless, bone-cracking efficiency.
“Argh!” Shiaoza cried out, forced down onto his knees on the elevated red carpet, his tailored tuxedo wrinkling awkwardly against the floor.
“Security! Security!” Beatrice shrieked, slamming her bejeweled hands against the VIP table, knocking over two crystal champagne flutes that shattered across the white linen. “Remove these thugs! How dare you lay hands on my son! Do you know who he is? He owns this hotel! He owns this city!”
“He owns nothing, Beatrice,” I said calmly, stepping to the front of the platform and looking down at the kneeling, broken man who had been my husband.
I gestured slightly toward the grand entrance of the ballroom.
The double doors opened once more, and four uniformed officers from the County Sheriff’s Department, accompanied by two senior process servers holding thick, legal folders with official judicial seals, marched down the central aisle with heavy, purposeful strides.
The entire assembly of two hundred elite guests parted like the Red Sea, gasping in horror as the law enforcement officers ascended the VIP stage.
The lead sheriff’s deputy, Captain Miller, stepped directly up to the table, pulling a certified judicial warrant from his leather folder.
“Shiaoza Shiao?” Captain Miller asked, his deep voice carrying across the entire room.
Shiaoza looked up from the floor, his face pale as chalk, tears of humiliation and terror finally spilling down his cheeks. “Y-Yes...?”
“I have an emergency writ of civil attachment and a felony criminal indictment issued by the State Grand Jury,” Captain Miller stated coldly, slapping the heavy document flat against the table right in front of Beatrice’s face. “You are formally charged with sixteen counts of grand larceny, commercial wire fraud, tax evasion, and money laundering totaling forty-eight million dollars.”
Beatrice let out a high-pitched, hysterical shriek. “This is an outrage! This is a conspiracy! My son is an honorable businessman! His wife is framing him because she’s jealous!”
“Furthermore,” Captain Miller continued, completely ignoring the screaming matriarch, “pursuant to the emergency asset forfeiture order signed by Federal Judge Hawthorne at 4:00 PM today, all accounts, vehicles, and real estate properties registered under the names of Shiaoza Shiao, Beatrice Shiao, and Jang Chin Tong are hereby frozen and subject to immediate federal seizure.”
Beatrice froze. Her breath caught violently in her throat.
“W-What did you say?” Beatrice choked out, clutching the pearls around her neck until the silk string snapped, sending dozens of flawless white pearls cascading across the floor like hail. “My... my properties? My Virginia equestrian estate?”
I stepped forward, looking down at the trembling old woman with absolute, merciless clarity.
“The Virginia equestrian estate was purchased using twelve million dollars of embezzled corporate logistics reserves, Beatrice,” I said softly, every word hitting her like a sledgehammer. “The title has been revoked. The county sheriff is changing the locks as we speak. You have seventy-two hours to remove your personal clothing before the property is auctioned off to satisfy corporate creditor claims.”
Beatrice’s eyes rolled back in sheer horror. She clutched her chest, gasping for air as if she were suffocating in the middle of the crowded room.
“You... you monster...” Beatrice whispered, trembling violently from head to toe. “I took you into my family! I allowed you to marry my son! How could you do this to us?”
“You didn't take me into your family, Beatrice,” I replied with chilling serenity. “You lived off my sweat, my intelligence, and my capital for ten years while treating me like an unpaid servant who was lucky to breathe your air. You demanded half-million-dollar watches while your son gave them to his mistress to laugh at me in the elevator.”
I turned the mahogany box around, tapped the diamond bezel of the Patek Philippe, and looked around the entire room of stunned high-society elites.
“This watch is corporate property, purchased with embezzled funds,” I announced to the entire ballroom. “It will be auctioned next week at Sotheby’s, and every penny will be donated to our corporate frontline employee emergency relief fund—starting with the hardworking staff who were forced to walk five flights of stairs every day because of this family’s disgusting arrogance.”
The entire ballroom erupted into a deafening roar of whispers, camera flashes, and horrified gasps.
Lady Harrington stood up, gathered her fur stole, and looked at Beatrice with open disgust. “Disgraceful. Absolutely disgraceful, Beatrice. To think we associated with such common thieves.”
Duchess DuPont followed immediately, turning her back on the Shiao family without uttering a single word of comfort.
Captain Miller stepped forward, pulling a pair of heavy steel handcuffs from his utility belt.
CLICK-CLACK.
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The cold steel clamped tightly around Shiaoza’s wrists. The former President of Vane-Shiao Enterprises was hauled to his feet by two burly deputies, weeping openly like a child, his expensive tuxedo soaked in sweat and tears as he was led down the red carpet in front of two hundred of his former peers.
Beatrice collapsed backward into her velvet chair, wailing hysterically as the society photographers captured every single second of the Shiao dynasty’s total, irreversible ruin.
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