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568words
A message from my brother.
"I've sent security to deliver Chloe to you. Twenty minutes later, and she’ll be at the estate.”
I started to type a reply when another notification popped up—a video from a friend.
I tapped play.
Chloe was beaming at the camera.
“I gave a very special ‘design’ to this old hag who thinks she’s a socialite.”
She waved the tattoo machine at the camera.
"Guess what I inked on her? 'Gold Digger'!"
“You should’ve seen her. Thirty years old and still flashing cleavage. Her skin was so saggy the needle kept slipping. I had to go over it three times—really pressed hard. Good luck washing that off.”
Comments scrolled wildly, "Queen of Petty!" "Served!" "LMAO!"
Chloe’s eyes sparkled with glee as she leaned closer.
"I see women like her all the time.Parading daddy’s money, buying Birkins, seducing rich men. Not like me, I built my own shop at twenty with actual talent.”
She let out an exaggerated sigh.
“Too bad for her. No matter what that washed-up hag tries, her husband’s already over it.”
“Next time I’ll go live. Something even spicier. Watch me teach that gold-digger a real lesson.”
The video ended.
I was so angry I actually laughed—short, cold, and sharp.
Chloe Summers.
That name... I gave it to her.
Five years ago, on a charity trip to the mountains, I found her in a crumbling shack.
She lay curled on a filthy straw mat, body covered in bruises, face sallow and hollow.
Her real name back then was Chloe Smith.
She grabbed the hem of my coat with trembling fingers.
“I want to go to school.”
I renamed her Chloe Summers, hoping the rest of her life could feel as bright and warm as summer.
I enrolled her in the best art academy.
I personally cut the ribbon at the grand opening of her tattoo parlor.
Now she’d used every skill my money had bought her to carve those two humiliating words into my chest, mock me online, and steal my husband.
But what cut deepest was how viciously Alexander had shielded her.
My thoughts shattered at the sound of heavy footsteps.
Dozens of black-clad security guards filed into the room in perfect silence.
Two of them dragged Chloe forward and dropped her onto the marble floor like discarded luggage.
She scrambled up, eyes blazing with defiance.
“Victoria Sterling! What else can you do except throw your family’s weight around?”
A smug smile suddenly curled her lips.
“When Alex finds out about this, he’ll make you regret it!”
“Once he dumps you, you think the Sterlings will still want a daughter the Fitzgeralds threw away? You’ll be nothing!”
I looked down at her and smiled—slowly.
“When Alexander pursued me, he didn’t even know the Sterling name meant anything.”
Her smile faltered, frozen in place.
I stepped closer, using the pointed toe of my shoe to tilt her chin upward.
“True. You’re twenty. Young. Fresh.”
“Your facial skin is smooth and perfect… ideal for patching over that tattoo on my chest.”
Her pupils blew wide with raw terror.
“As for my family’s ‘power’…”
I stepped back. The butler silently offered a sanitizing wipe. I took it and cleaned my hands with deliberate care.
“You’ve got it backwards.”
I met her eyes again, voice calm and final.
“In Manhattan, I am the power.”
