CHAPTER 23: THE WEIGHT OF TRUTH

Victoria sat in her living room as shadows lengthened across the marble floor, hands folded in her lap like she was preparing for war.

She could still feel the weight of Alex’s arms around her, still taste the salt of her own tears on her lips.

The drive home had been a blur of streetlights and raw determination... she’d left him sleeping peacefully for the first time since she’d known him, and now she had work to do.Her daughter would be home soon. And this time, Victoria wouldn’t be blind.

The way his shoulders had curved inward when he talked about the ring. How he’d stared at nothing when he said "No one came." The careful distance he kept even now, like he was still bracing for the next blow.

Her chest ached every time she remembered the emptiness in his eyes.

The front door slammed as darkness settled outside, followed by the familiar sound of designer heels clicking against marble. Sophia breezed in like she owned the world, designer bag slung over her shoulder, not even glancing toward the living room.

"Sophia."

Her daughter paused, irritation flickering across her perfect features. "Oh. Hi, Mom. I’m exhausted, can we..."

"Sit down."

Something in Victoria’s voice made Sophia’s spine straighten, but she slouched into the opposite chair with practiced boredom.

"Where were you?" Victoria asked quietly.

"What do you mean?"

"You haven’t been at college for fifteen days. I called."

Sophia rolled her eyes. "God, Mom, you’re tracking me now? I was in Singapore. Wherever people go when they need space."

The casual dismissal hit Victoria like a physical blow. Fifteen days. While I thought she was studying.

"That’s what we’re paying for? Thousands a year so you can disappear?"

"Don’t be dramatic, Mom." Sophia was already scrolling through her phone. "It’s called living. You wouldn’t understand."

Victoria felt something cold settle in her chest. When had her daughter’s voice become so... empty?

"Tell me about Alex."

Sophia’s head snapped up. "What?"

"Alex. Your boyfriend from college. Tell me what happened."

Something flickered in Sophia’s eyes... surprise, then something almost like guilt before it hardened into irritation. "Why are you asking about him?"

"Just tell me."

"There’s nothing to tell. We broke up. End of story." Sophia’s voice was too casual, too quick.

"He was hospitalized, Sophia."

The silence stretched between them. Victoria watched her daughter’s face, looking for the little girl who used to climb into her lap after nightmares, who cried when she accidentally stepped on ants.

"So?" Sophia said finally, but her voice wavered.

Victoria felt her world tilt. "So?"

"Look, if he couldn’t handle himself at a party, that’s... that’s not my fault." Sophia’s fingers twisted in her lap. "I didn’t make him come. I didn’t tell him to start trouble with Marcus."

Victoria’s breath caught. "Start trouble?"

"He got in Marcus’s face about something. I don’t know what. Boys fight, Mom. It happens."

Victoria stood slowly, her hands trembling. "You’re lying."

"I’m not..."

"He told me everything, Sophia." Victoria’s voice cracked. "About your game. About you laughing. About your friends filming while he was beaten unconscious."

Sophia went very still. Then her face crumpled, just for a second, before hardening again.

"He’s lying," she whispered. "He’s trying to turn you against me."

"A ring, Sophia. He bought you a ring."

Sophia’s composure shattered. Tears sprang to her eyes. "I... I didn’t know he was going to do that. I thought we were just... it wasn’t supposed to..."

"Wasn’t supposed to what?"

"Marcus said it would be funny!" The words burst out of her. "He said guys like Alex needed to learn their place. He said it would just be embarrassing, not... not what happened after."

Victoria felt bile rise in her throat. "Guys like Alex?"

"Poor guys. Scholarship kids. Marcus said they get ideas above their station and someone needs to show them reality." Sophia was crying now. "But I didn’t know he was going to buy me a ring. I didn’t know he thought we were... that serious."

Victoria sank back into her chair, staring at this stranger who looked like her daughter.

"You humiliated him in front of everyone."

"Marcus said to play along... "

"And then you watched him get beaten."

"I tried to stop it!" Sophia’s voice broke. "When Marcus and his friends started hitting him, I told them to stop. But they said he had it coming for disrespecting me. They said... "

Victoria’s hand moved before she could think.

The slap echoed through the room like a gunshot.

Sophia stared at her mother in absolute shock, one hand pressed to her reddening cheek. In twenty-two years, Victoria had never even raised her voice in anger.

"Did you just hit me?" Sophia’s voice was barely a whisper.

Victoria stared at her palm, then at her daughter. "I should have done this long ago."

"Mom..."

"When you made Sarah Mitchell eat lunch alone for three months because her shoes weren’t expensive enough." Victoria’s voice was hollow. "I told myself you were just finding your social group."

Sophia’s tears fell harder.

"When you convinced Emma she was too ugly to try out for cheerleading and she stopped eating for six months." Victoria’s hands were shaking. "I said you were just competitive."

"Those weren’t the same..."

"They were exactly the same!" Victoria’s composure finally cracked. "You’ve been hurting people for years, and I made excuses because I loved you too much to see what you were becoming!"

"I’m still your daughter!" Sophia sobbed.

"Are you?" Victoria looked at her with something that might have been grief. "Because my daughter wouldn’t torture someone for loving her."

"I told you, Marcus made me..."

"Marcus made you?" Victoria’s voice was dangerously quiet.

"He said it was just a prank. He said guys like Alex need to know their place in the world."

Victoria went very still. "Their place in the world."

"I mean..." Sophia wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "You have to understand, Mom. People like Alex, they’re just... different. They don’t belong in our world anyway. Marcus was just showing him reality."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

Victoria looked at her daughter... really looked at her... and saw something that made her blood turn to ice.

No remorse. No understanding. Just damage control.

"People like Alex," Victoria repeated slowly.

"You know what I mean. Poor people. They get these ideas, and someone has to..."

The second slap was harder than the first.

Sophia’s head snapped back, fresh tears springing to her eyes from shock and pain.

But when Victoria spoke again, her voice wasn’t motherly grief anymore. It was the voice that had fired hundred-million-dollar executives without blinking.

"You disgust me."

Sophia froze at the tone. This wasn’t her loving, indulgent mother anymore. This was someone else entirely.

"Twenty-two years," Victoria said, her voice cutting like a blade. "Twenty-two years I’ve loved you, protected you, made excuses for you. And this is what I raised. A creature who thinks human suffering is entertainment."

"Mom, please..."

"My daughter died the night she laughed while an innocent boy was beaten unconscious." Victoria’s words fell like hammer blows. "What you are is a stranger wearing her face."

Sophia backed away from the ice in her mother’s eyes.

"From now on, Your credit cards are frozen. Your bank accounts are locked. Your trust fund access is revoked." Victoria’s voice was surgical in its precision. "The apartment, the car, the insurance... all of it stops today."

"You can’t do that!"

"Watch me." Victoria’s smile was razor-sharp. "I built this empire from nothing. I can take it all away just as easily."

"I’m your daughter!"

"No." Victoria’s voice was final, absolute. "You’re a mistake I’m finally correcting."

Victoria moved toward the stairs, then paused without turning around.

"When you’re ready to apologize to Alex... really apologize, not because someone told you to or because I’m making you... call me." Her voice was deadly quiet. "Until then, figure out who you want to be without our money protecting you from your choices."

She started up the stairs, then stopped again.

"And Sophia? If I ever hear you’ve hurt someone else the way you hurt that boy, you’ll discover just how ruthless the mother of a ’nobody’ can be."

The front door slammed a few minutes later.

Victoria sat alone in her marble palace, no longer crying.

She’d tried to save her daughter.

Now she was ready to bury her.