Chapter 4 - THE EMPIRE IN RUINS
The disintegration was immediate, violent, and absolute. That very night, Richard threw Victoria's belongings into the garden in the pouring rain. Julian tried to reason with him, but the mansion's security guards beat him and escorted him out into the street. Emma watched everything from her bedroom window, feeling a mixture of triumph and a devastating emptiness. She had removed the tumor, but the patient was bleeding out.
The following weeks were a media frenzy. The Carters' divorce dominated the covers of every financial and society magazine. Cornered and with nothing left to lose, Victoria decided she wouldn't go down alone. She hired the most ruthless lawyers in New York and counterattacked.
In a move no one expected, Victoria leaked internal Carter Holdings documents to the press. Documents that Julian, in private moments, had confessed to her existed. They showed that the Chicago merger had been achieved through bribes to local government officials.
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Emma watched as her father's anger turned to despair. The Carter Holdings offices were raided by the FBI. Richard was arrested on live television. In her thirst for revenge, Victoria had destroyed the entire empire, burning the ship to ensure the captain drowned.
The Carter mansion, once a symbol of perfection, was seized. Emma found herself alone, packing her belongings into cardboard boxes. Her father faced years in prison. Her mother, socially ostracized and with her accounts frozen due to the investigation, had fled to a squalid apartment in the suburbs, accompanied by a resentful and broken Julian. The family hadn't just disintegrated; it had ceased to exist.
