Chapter 7 - The Unravelling
Within two weeks, the invincible facade of the Reyes family completely disintegrated.
Without Michael’s financial subsidies and corporate management, Reyes Enterprises missed three major project deadlines. Uncle Roberto, realizing the ship was sinking, quietly resigned and retired to Florida.
Sofia’s husband, a man who had married her for her social standing and family money, discovered that the lavish lifestyle was built on quicksand. Without trust funds to draw from, their country club memberships were revoked, their luxury cars were repossessed, and Sofia found herself—for the first time in her adult life—having to actually clean her own house and cook her own meals.
She tried calling Michael twice. Both times, her number went straight to voicemail.
Dolores, proud and stubborn to the bitter end, refused to leave the Staten Island estate voluntarily until local sheriff deputies served her with formal eviction and asset-seizure notices.
The mighty matriarch, who had once ruled her family with a velvet glove wrapped around an iron fist, was forced to pack her belongings into cardboard boxes and move into a modest two-bedroom townhouse across town—a place she would have previously considered fit only for peasants.
Word traveled through the extended family grapevine, of course.
May you like
Cousins who had laughed at my expense during Sunday dinners suddenly started texting me out of nowhere, offering polite excuses, asking how we were doing, and hinting at invitations to our new life.
I ignored every single one of them. We had no room in our future for fair-weather relatives.
