SHE THREW HER MOTHER AWAY… UNTIL THE LAWYER ANSWERED

SHE THREW HER MOTHER AWAY… UNTIL THE LAWYER ANSWERED

The Masquerade Ball

Soft classical music from a private symphony orchestra blended with the clinking of crystal champagne flutes. Tonight was the grand gala celebrating the tenth anniversary of Prosperity Real Estate Group. The main hall of the French royal-style mansion gleamed brilliantly under a crystal chandelier worth millions of dollars.

Victoria stood at the dead center of attention. She wore a seductive, high-slit black evening gown, her proud neck adorned with a priceless diamond necklace recently won at a Paris auction. Victoria’s smile was radiant, but her eyes were cold, calculating, and sharp. She had just officially taken over the chair of the Board of Directors from her late father.

“Congratulations, Chairman Victoria! You are a true business genius. Over the past ten years, you’ve taken the group to unprecedented heights,” a tycoon raised his glass in admiration.

Victoria took a sip of red wine, offering a faint smile. “You flatter me. To get where I am today, I had to cut off quite a few ‘redundant pieces’ that were blocking my way.”

Right at that moment, a loud crash echoed from the main gate, abruptly interrupting the orchestra’s crescendo. The wrought-iron gates were violently pushed open. An old, rusted cargo truck, sputtering and reeking of engine oil, drove straight onto the polished marble courtyard. Its appearance was like a stain of dirty black ink splattered across the flawless canvas of high society.

The guests whispered among themselves, parting to either side. Victoria frowned, the smile instantly vanishing from her lips.

Two burly, rough-looking men in worn-out jackets jumped down from the truck cabin. They roughly unlatched the back tailgate. Inside the truck bed, a frail, hunched figure was trembling.

“Get down!” one of the men barked, grabbing the thin arm of the poor woman and throwing her ruthlessly onto the ground.

Thud!

The woman collapsed forward, her knees and palms striking the freezing marble floor. The sound of shifting joints was painful to hear. Her worn, tattered grey coat was smeared with dirt and grease. Her disheveled, snow-white hair fell over a face deeply lined by the hardships of life.

“Look at her!” Victoria stepped forward, the click-clack of her stilettos hammering against the floor like rhythmic mallets. She harbored no pity whatsoever; on the contrary, her eyes were filled with disgust and rage.

The woman lifted her tear-streaked face. It was Mrs. Helen—Victoria’s biological mother.

The Ruthlessness of an Ungrateful Daughter
“Victoria… Mother… I just wanted to come and congratulate you…” Mrs. Helen murmured, her voice weak and trembling. Her rough, calloused hands tried to grasp the hem of her daughter’s gown, but Victoria coldly stepped back, avoiding her as if dodging a contagious disease.

“Congratulate me? Or did you come to beg for money?” Victoria screamed, her voice cutting through the ears of every guest present. “Look at yourself! How much of this family’s money have you squandered on your useless charity funds? Now you have nothing left but this broken body, and you come crawling back here just to be a burden to me?!”

Mrs. Helen looked at her daughter in utter shock. “I have never spent a single dime of yours… That money was…”

“Shut up!” Victoria cut her off, pointing her finger directly into her mother’s face. “Ten years ago, when your husband died, you chose to leave this house to follow your delusional ideals. Now, I am the master of this seat, the owner of this conglomerate! I’m warning you, if you ever cross that door again, I will make sure you have no place left to shelter in this city. You will have absolutely nothing!”

The whispers of the guests grew louder by the second. A few looked uncomfortable, but most cast glances of pure disdain at the ragged woman kneeling on the floor. Victoria’s husband, a dapper but spineless man, merely watched from a distance without uttering a single word.

Mrs. Helen fell silent. Tears streamed down her hollow cheeks, washing away the dirt but unable to erase the profound trauma in her eyes. She stared at the daughter she had carried for nine months, the child she had spent her youth protecting.

But then, something strange happened.

The agony on Mrs. Helen’s face vanished, replaced by an eerie, unnerving calmness. She muttered under her breath, her voice so low that only she could hear it: “What my daughter doesn’t know… is that arrogance always precedes destruction.”

The Object of Power
Mrs. Helen slowly pushed herself up. Despite her slightly hunched back and frail frame, her aura shifted so drastically that the people standing around her instinctively took a step back.

She reached her hand into the pocket of her tattered coat. Victoria sneered, “What are you planning to pull out? A piece of breadcrumb or a few loose pennies?”

But what Mrs. Helen pulled out made the entire ballrol-edition smartphone, encased in solid gold and encrusted with black diamonds—a ultra-secure, custom-tier device reserved only for top-tier politicians and the world’s hidden billionaires. It was a luxury item that even Victoria would have to wait in line for over a year just to acquire.

Mrs. Helen casually swiped the screen with her thumb. The screen displayed a single, exclusive contact name: LAWYER Satler.

Who was Satler? He was a legend of the global legal arena, the head of a supreme law firm that managed the assets of anonymous oligarchic dynasties. A single word from Satler could rock the global financial markets.

Mrs. Helen pressed the answer button and pressed the phone to her ear. Her face no longer bore the weakness of an abandoned mother; instead, it carried the sheer majesty of an absolute ruler.

“Lawyer Satler, it’s me,” Mrs. Helen’s voice rang out, firm and resonant across the grand hall.

“Yes, Supreme Madame. I have been waiting for this call for ten long years,” the other end answered, the audio amplified through the speakerphone so clearly that it sent shivers down everyone’s spine.

Mrs. Helen looked directly into Victoria’s eyes, which were rapidly widening with a look of creeping panic, and enunciated every single word heavily:

“It’s time. Activate the top-secret clause in my late husband’s will. Freeze all of my daughter’s assets, block all bank accounts, stocks, and strip her executive rights over the conglomerate immediately. Leave her with nothing, just as she wished for me.”

The Fall of the Arrogant
“You… you’re crazy! What nonsense are you babbling about?” Victoria stammered, trying to maintain her composure, but the crystal glass in her hand began to shake violently, spilling red wine over her fingers. “This conglomerate was left to me by my father! You have no right!”

“Left to you by your father?” Mrs. Helen let out a bitter smile. “Ten years ago, your father’s terrible business decisions nearly landed him in prison. It was I who used my own family’s entire hidden wealth to bail him out and salvage this company. The true will explicitly dictates: Victoria is merely a temporary manager. The rightful holder of 80% of the founding shares, with absolute veto power over the Prosperity Group… is me!”

Smash!

The crystal glass slipped from Victoria’s grip, shattering into pieces against the floor. The crimson wine splattered across the white marble like blood.

Right at that moment, Victoria’s phone, along with those of several high-profile guests in the hall, began ringing frantically.

“Chairman! Something terrible has happened!” The Chief Financial Officer’s voice screamed through Victoria’s phone in pure terror. “The central bank has frozen every single one of our corporate accounts! A mandate from the Supreme Court was just issued! Our stock price is in a freefall! The enterprise system has revoked your access completely!”

“No… No, that’s impossible! Check it again! There must be a mistake!” Victoria shrieked, her meticulously made-up face turning pale and twisting in sheer horror.

She looked over at her husband, but the spineless man, having just received a text notification, immediately took three steps away from her, his eyes dripping with cold detachment. The VIP guests who had just been crowding around her with flattery fell into dead silence, looking at her as if she were a prisoner on death row.

“Mother… Mother…” Victoria trembled, her knees giving out completely. Her expensive evening gown dragged along the floor, pooling in the exact spot where her mother had been kneeling just minutes prior. She desperately lunged forward to grab Mrs. Helen’s leg. “Mother, I was wrong… I was just stressed from work… Please forgive me…”

Mrs. Helen looked down at the pathetic, weeping daughter at her feet. In her eyes, there was no anger left—only a profound, crushing disappointment. She let out a soft sigh and turned her back, walking toward the old cargo truck.

The two burly men from earlier respectfully opened the cabin door for her. As it turned out, they weren’t low-life truck drivers at all; they were her most loyal elite bodyguards, hired to protect her during the years she chose to live humbly doing charity work.

The truck’s engine roared to life, slowly rolling away from the mansion’s courtyard, leaving behind a sobbing Victoria, wailing in absolute despair amidst the ruins of her grand party. High above, the magnificent crystal chandelier gleamed, silently mocking the woman who had just lost everything to a single word: Greed.