Chapter 14 - The Family Turns
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When an empire collapses, the vultures are always the first to feast.
Three days after the disastrous dinner party, Daniel’s extended family realized that the Mercer fortune was a complete sham.
Aunt Patricia, furious that her brother’s estate had been ruined and embarrassed that she had bragged about a non-existent family trust, hired an independent auditor to look into how Vivian had managed the late patriarch's remaining assets.
The findings were devastating.
Vivian had spent the last three years taking out unauthorized personal loans against family-owned properties, convincing her relatives that the money was being reinvested into high-yield commercial ventures. In reality, she was using the loans to buy designer clothes, throw lavish galas, and maintain her illusion of high-society status.
When the loans dried up, she had pressured Daniel to siphon my salary to cover the interest payments so the banks wouldn't foreclose.
The entire Mercer family turned on Vivian with vicious speed.
Uncle Richard filed a formal lawsuit against Vivian for mismanaging family trust funds. Aunt Patricia cut off all contact, publicly posting on social media that Vivian was a "fraud who leeching off her daughter-in-law."
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Daniel was caught directly in the crossfire. His cousins blocked his phone number, his mother blamed him for not controlling me, and his professional network collapsed as news of the family's financial bankruptcy leaked into local business journals.
He went from being the golden son of a wealthy dynasty to an unemployed, broke thirty-two-year-old living in a crumbling mansion with a mother who did nothing but scream at him from morning till night.
