Chapter 3 - Sunrise in South BeachThe penthouse suite of the Grand Palms Hotel in Miami Beach smelled of expensive cigars, ocean salt, and expensive room-service champagne.
At 9:00 a.m. local time, Eleanor Moretti was lounging on a velvet chaise lounge by the floor-to-ceiling windows, wearing a silk bathrobe and sipping a mimosa. Across the room, Chloe was scrolling through her phone, laughing as she browsed through online catalogs of designer sunglasses.
“I still say we should have stayed another week,” Chloe remarked, tossing her phone onto the glass coffee table. “New York in January is miserable. And honestly, leaving Maya alone was the best thing we could have done. She needed to learn some independence. Mother, don’t you agree?”
Eleanor took a delicate sip of her mimosa, her expression entirely serene. “Of course, darling. Some women use childbirth as an excuse to become helpless. Maya was simply coddled. A few days of quiet reflection will do her good. Besides, David works too hard to have his money wasted on unnecessary nurses and organic nonsense.”
Just then, a sharp, authoritative knock echoed at the suite door.
Chloe rolled her eyes, standing up and smoothing out her designer resort-wear. “Must be room service with the pastries. I specifically told them extra powdered sugar.”
She walked across the plush carpet and pulled the heavy wooden door open.
It wasn't room service.
Four towering police officers in dark tactical windbreakers stood in the hallway, flanked by two detectives from the Miami-Dade Police Department.
Chloe froze, her hand gripping the edge of the door. “Can... can I help you?”
“Are you Chloe Moretti-Davis?” the lead detective asked, his voice sharp and unyielding.
“Yes, but—what is the meaning of this?” Chloe stammered, her voice rising in panic.
Before the detective could answer, Eleanor swept over from the chaise lounge, her face twisting into an indignant, aristocratic scowl. “How dare you barge into our hotel? Do you know who we are? My son is David Moretti, one of the most influential executives in—'”
“Your son David is currently at a police precinct in Manhattan filing criminal charges against you,” the detective interrupted, stepping past Chloe into the suite. He pulled a folded document from his jacket. “Eleanor Moretti, Chloe Davis, and Mark Davis, you are being placed under arrest for grand larceny, wire fraud, embezzlement, and criminal endangerment of a vulnerable adult.”
The room went dead silent.
The glass of mimosa slipped from Eleanor’s hand, shattering against the white marble floor, splashing orange juice across her designer slippers.
“Arrested?” Eleanor gasped, her face turning a mottled shade of crimson. “That’s absurd! We are his family! He gave us those funds! Maya is just a manipulative liar who turned him against us!”
“Tell it to the judge in New York,” the detective said coldly, gesturing to his officers. “Put your hands behind your back.”
As the cold steel of the handcuffs clicked around Eleanor’s wrists, her haughty demeanor finally cracked, replaced by a sudden, frantic wave of panic.
“Call David!” she shrieked as officers led her toward the hallway. “Tell him his mother is being treated like a common criminal! Tell him he has to fix this right now!”
May you like
Chloe was already in tears, sobbing loudly as an officer secured her wrists behind her back. Mark, who had just emerged from the master bedroom in a silk bathrobe, was shoved against the wall and cuffed before he could even ask what was happening.
The luxury suite was left empty, the half-drunk mimosas slowly growing warm in the Florida sun, while the wheels of justice began rolling them northward toward a reckoning they never saw coming.
Related Stories
