The mansion windows blazed with warm, opulent light. The sweet, melodic sound of smooth jazz and clinking crystal flutes drifted through the French terrace doors. The driveway was packed with high-end vehicles: my younger sister Cleo’s brand-new cherry-red Porsche Macan and my uncle Rob’s silver Lexus sedan.
Someone was hosting a lavish dinner party. In my home. While I was supposed to be across the ocean. Using my personal master keycard, I entered silently through the basement wine cellar entrance, taking the service stairway up to the second-floor living quarters.
I walked toward the master bedroom at the end of the eastern corridor—the sprawling twelve-hundred-square-foot sanctuary that Vita and I had spent six months personally decorating with custom teak furnishings, velvet draperies, and cherished family mementos. The double mahogany doors stood slightly ajar.
I pushed them open and stepped onto the plush ivory carpet. What I saw turned my stomach inside out. Vita had been completely erased from the room. Her framed photographs with her late grandmother were gone from the nightstands.
The velvet armchairs where she loved to read parenting books were draped with garish designer shopping bags from Chanel and Balenciaga. The antique silver jewelry box she inherited from her mother—which had always rested on the marble vanity—had been replaced by Cleo’s sprawling collection.
I strode over to the master walk-in closet and yanked open the mirrored sliding panels. My custom suits were pushed tightly against one corner. All of Vita’s maternity clothes, her silk robes, her soft cashmere cardigans—everything was missing. In their place hung rows of Cleo’s backless cocktail dresses and fur stoles.
Four dozen pairs of designer stilettos lined the shoe racks I had built specifically for Vita’s comfort. From the first floor below, Cleo’s high-pitched, mocking laughter echoed up the stairwell: “Mom, you should have seen her face when I told her that lavender Ralph Lauren gown looked ten times better on my figure anyway!”
A chorus of polite, aristocratic chuckles answered her from the dining room. My chest seized with fury so acute I could taste copper in my throat. This was my home. I had purchased this 6.5-million-dollar estate four years ago with my own sweat, sleepless nights, and commercial design fees.
