Chapter 1: The Woman Kneeling on the Marble Floor
“If you spill the water one more time, I swear I'll make you stay on your knees until that baby is born!”
I heard my mother's voice before I had fully stepped into the living room.
I had come home around noon to pick up a confidential folder for a board meeting. I hadn't told anyone I was coming. I assumed my wife, Daphne, would be resting since she was eight months pregnant.
What I saw through the glass wall knocked the breath out of me.
Daphne was kneeling on the marble floor, her maternity dress soaked through, her swollen hands submerged in a basin of ginger water.
Across from her, my mother, Rosalind, lounged comfortably in a leather armchair, calmly eating a walnut dessert while forcing my wife to wash her feet.
“Scrub harder,” she ordered. “After all, you're living off my son's money.”
Daphne tried to stand, but she lost her balance.
Without hesitation, my mother lifted her foot and k:ick:ed her in the side of her pregnant belly.
I don't remember dropping my briefcase.
I only remember the deafening crash as it hit the floor, Daphne's scream, and the burning rage rising into my throat.
I rushed across the room and shoved my mother away.
She stumbled backward into the basin, soaking herself in water, staring at me in complete sh0ck.
In all my thirty-six years, I had never raised my voice to her.
Much less laid a hand on her.
But the woman standing before me no longer looked like the mother I had brought from San Diego to live with us in San Jose.
She looked like a complete stranger.
I dropped to my knees beside Daphne.
Her lip was split, and she was trembling.
“How long has this been happening?”
“I didn't want to put you between us,” she whispered. “You were so happy to have her living here...”
Her answer shattered me.
For twelve years, Daphne had stood beside me. Back when we survived on bean tacos in a tiny rented room near the university.
She sold the gold necklace her grandmother left her so I could start a small medical equipment distribution business.
She worked as my accountant, delivery driver, and even cleaned the office herself when we couldn't afford employees.
Because of her sacrifices, that tiny office had grown into a company generating millions in revenue.
And I, blinded by my determination to be a devoted son, had invited my mother into our home and handed her a bank card loaded with 5,000 dollars every month for living expenses.
I walked upstairs, packed two suitcases with her clothes and jewelry, carried them outside, and left them on the curb beneath the blazing forty-degree sun.
“You're never setting foot in this house again.”
Rosalind touched her face in disbelief. Then her expression twisted into fury.
“This house belongs to me too. Your company exists because of me. And when your brother Mason gets here, we'll strip you of everything, even your family name!”
I closed the gate without saying a word.
That night, while Daphne slept under medical observation, I opened the safe in my study.
It was empty.
Five gold bars were gone.
Fifty hundred thousand dollars in cash had vanished.
Worse still, the company's original incorporation documents had disappeared.
Just then, my phone rang.
It was Mason.
“Brother,” he said with a laugh, “tomorrow we'll talk about my new position as CEO.”
I couldn't believe what was about to happen next.
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