Emily, clad in a luxurious custom-designed gown, walked over with graceful steps. She looked down at my kneeling mother and splashed red wine onto her face.
“Why is it you? Where is he? I wanted Ethan Brooks to come pay me back. What’s wrong—was he too scared to face me, so he sent you instead?”
She sneered. “He never imagined that I, Emily Carter, would become the wealthiest woman alive. Do you regret it now?”
My mother’s reddened eyes brimmed with grief and helplessness. She shook her head with sobs.
“Ethan… he can’t come. He’ll never come again.”
Breaking free, she pulled a red plastic bag from her pocket and took out two stacks of bills.
“I’m here to repay you on Ethan’s behalf. This is twenty thousand—count it.”
Emily snatched the money and smacked it against my mother’s head.
“Pathetic. Only twenty thousand? Do you think I’m a fool?”
“Five years ago it was twenty thousand. Now it’s five hundred thousand.”
“What? How could it increase so much?”
“That’s interest!”
“But I don’t have that kind of money. Even this twenty thousand I earned by working as a janitor and collecting bottles.”
“Emily, please don’t do this.”
“Sorry. I’m a businesswoman—I only care about profit.”