Chapter 8
Mom’s legal team efficiently took control of everything.
Lawsuits, hearings, verdicts.
Every step was shockingly fast.
Dad and Uncle Mason were sentenced to fifteen years for commercial fraud and embezzlement.
All personal assets confiscated to return ill-gotten gains.
Every bit of fake prosperity the Holloways had built with Mom’s money collapsed overnight.
Mansions, luxury cars, designer goods-all tagged with cold court seals, awaiting forced auction.
Grandma came straight to my school but got stopped by security at the gate.
She threw a tantrum there, cursing non-stop, drawing huge crowds.
“River Holloway! You lightning-struck ungrateful brat!”
“You sent your own father and uncle to prison-can you even sleep at night!”
“I’m your grandmother! Let me in!”
I watched from a classroom window a hundred meters away.
Not a ripple in my heart.
I picked up my phone and called security.
“I don’t know her. Get her out of here.”
Then I blocked every Holloway family contact.
That surname had been my eighteen-year nightmare.
Mom helped me take a leave of absence.
She didn’t say much to comfort me, just took my hand and led me onto a plane overseas.
“Mommy owes you eighteen years,”
“I’ll spend every future day making up for it.”
She took me around the world. In London luxury boutiques, bought me coats I’d never dared look at the price tags of.
In Paris, she bought an entire building just so I could design my studio however I wanted.
For the first time, I felt what it was like to spend money this way.
What it felt like to be loved.
Six months later, a prison guard forwarded a letter Dad wrote me.
Full of remorse and begging.
“River, I knows I was wrong, really wrong.”
“Your mom listens to you most-help Daddy beg for mercy, let Daddy serve fewer years, okay?”
“We’re family after all…”
Family.
Looking at the word made me sick to my stomach.
I immediately threw the letter in the fireplace.
During my year off, I didn’t waste time partying.
Mom brought me to top-level business meetings.
She taught me hands-on how to see through people, how to strategize.
She told me:
“Business is warfare, human hearts are weapons. You need to learn not how to be kind, but how to win.”
I was no longer that girl living on eight hundred dollars, trapped in hatred.
I used Mom’s first startup fund to establish my own venture capital company.
First project: huge success.
When I appeared on financial magazine covers in haute couture suits, Cecilia sent me a shocked message.
“River! You’re a real billionaire now!! Just like your Mom!”
I looked at that message, smiled, and replied: Thanks.
On my twentieth birthday, Mom gave me a big gift.
Really big-
She transferred 30% of her group’s shares to me.
I stared at those numbers, heart pounding.
In an instant, I was transported back to my former self who could only eat veggie sandwiches.
The self who endured stomach cramps from hunger.
The self who didn’t dare socialize because I couldn’t afford to split bar tabs…
Those past scenes flashed through my mind like a rewind.
“Sign it.”
Mom’s voice was soft.
I looked at her and asked:
“Why?”
She lifted her wine glass, swirling it gently.
“River, Mommy isn’t giving you charity.”
“I’m giving you weapons.”
“So you’ll always have the confidence never to be slaughtered again.”
I didn’t hesitate-signed my name.
River Foster.
