“You have completely lost your mind! You know very well that I am not paying this!”
“You stated multiple times in front of everyone that you were inviting the entire room today.”
“That was obviously just a figure of speech! Tell Lucas to handle this bill!”
“That sounds like an excellent idea, so please go ahead and call him right now.”
Beatrice pulled out her smartphone with a triumphant sneer.
“With great pleasure!”
She immediately put the call on speakerphone so she could humiliate me in front of all thirty-eight of her friends.
Lucas answered after several nervous rings.
“Hello? Mom?”
“Son, I am at the restaurant right now, and your crazy wife is trying to charge me $23,289! Tell her immediately to stop playing games and sign the transfer documents to hand the business over to you!”
There was a silence so heavy on the other end of the line that even Beatrice stopped smirking.
Finally, Lucas spoke with a shaky, terrified voice.
“Mom… what on earth did you just do?”
PART 3
“What do you mean, ‘What did I do?’” Beatrice snapped into the phone. “I brought my friends here just like I told you I would to help promote our restaurant!”
Lucas exhaled sharply, struggling to catch his breath.
“Mom, it is not our restaurant.”
Beatrice froze completely in the middle of the crowded room.
“Stop joking around with me, Lucas.”
“I am not joking! I never put a single dollar into that business! The restaurant belongs entirely to Camilla!”
The surrounding women began exchanging uncomfortable, confused glances with one another.
Beatrice gripped her phone tighter, her knuckles turning white.
“But you prepared the legal transfer documents!”
“Yes, I drafted them myself, but Camilla never agreed to sign anything over to me!”
A wealthy woman sitting near Beatrice leaned over and asked in a sharp whisper.
“So why on earth did you tell us this luxury establishment was practically yours already?”
Beatrice pretended not to hear her and spoke frantically into the phone.
“Lucas, explain to them right now that you are taking out loans to save this restaurant because it is going bankrupt!”
Another awkward silence stretched over the line.
“Mom… that is a lie, too.”
The color drained from Beatrice’s face in an instant.
“What did you say?”
“The restaurant is not bankrupt, and it never was!”
Nobody in the private room dared to take another sip of their drink.
Lucas continued rambling nervously over the speakerphone, completely unraveling his own lies.
“I had massive personal debts, Mom! I needed money desperately, which is why I took funds directly from the commercial account!”
“How much money?” Beatrice demanded, her voice cracking.
“A lot…”
I stepped forward and intervened directly into the call.
“It was nearly forty thousand dollars in unauthorized transfers and personal expenses, all of which are documented.”
Lucas went completely silent on the line.
One of Beatrice’s closest friends stood up and asked loudly.
“And what about that young girl you were boasting about earlier, Beatrice?”
Beatrice glared at her friend with pure rage, but Lucas was already caught in his own trap.
“Yes, there was someone else,” Lucas confessed miserably. “Part of the money went toward luxury hotel rooms, expensive gifts, and trips.”
A loud murmur of shock rippled through the gathered crowd. Beatrice seemed utterly incapable of processing that her own son was dismantling her entire fake empire in less than five minutes.
“You lied to me, Lucas,” she whispered in disbelief.
“I needed you to pressure Camilla into giving me control of the business! I thought if I gained legal access, I could use the restaurant’s revenue to fix my debts!”
One of the prominent socialites stood up from her chair.
“Beatrice, you explicitly told all of us that your son was the sole owner of this venue!”
“I was only repeating what he explained to me!” Beatrice shouted back defensively.
“You also promised that you were paying for this entire banquet!” another woman added angrily, picking up the massive bill. “Who is going to pay for all this expensive food and wine now?”
Beatrice looked frantically toward the exit, but I stepped smoothly into her path.
“The person who organized the event, placed the massive orders, and publicly announced that they were treating everyone should be held legally responsible. If you believe Lucas should cover it, you are welcome to work that out with him.”
Beatrice raised the phone back to her mouth.
“Lucas, pay this bill right now!”
“I cannot, Mom.”
“What do you mean you cannot?”
“I do not have any money left!”
The line went completely dead as Lucas hung up.
Nobody moved for several long seconds, and the room was suffocatingly quiet.
I calmly reached down and pulled back the receipt on the silver tray to reveal the underlying legal paperwork.
“There is something else you all should know,” I said clearly.
I handed Beatrice the certified copy of my official court ruling.
“As of this morning, the final decree was signed. Lucas and I are officially divorced, and we are no longer husband and wife.”
Beatrice blinked rapidly, staring at the seal on the document.
“That… that cannot be real.”
“It is entirely real, Beatrice. Legally speaking, we are no longer related in any way, and even if we were, that would never give your family the right to walk into my business, consume thousands of dollars in high-end goods, and leave without paying.”
Beatrice looked down at the court documents, then at her furious friends, and finally toward the glass doors.
“Camilla, please… we are family. Do not do this to me.”
“When you referred to me as nothing more than a simple servant in front of thirty-eight people today, were we family then?”
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“When Lucas was stealing funds from my company account to finance his mistress, were we family then?”
Silence.
“When you brought legal papers to force me out of my own business, were we family?”
Beatrice’s friends began physically stepping away from her, washing their hands of the situation.
“I only came today because Beatrice assured us everything was taken care of!” one woman declared loudly.
“Me too!” another chimed in. “I am certainly not getting dragged into legal trouble because of her family’s lies!”
Beatrice began to cry real tears of panic.
“My son deceived me, too!”
“You can explain your side of the story to the proper authorities,” I replied firmly. “But the outstanding debt for this meal remains unpaid.”
Gavin walked up beside me.
“Should I call security, Camilla?”
“Just to keep the peace, Gavin. Nobody is going to be harmed, but if anyone refuses to pay their portion or attempts to leave without providing full identification, please dial the police immediately.”
When Beatrice realized that I was not going to back down, she began desperately begging me.
