Advice

Advice


Georgina angrily stumped into her sitting room, her heels clicking hard against the marble floor as she threw her bag on the couch with such force that it bounced once before settling. Her face was red with rage, her chest rising and falling rapidly like she'd just run a marathon.

"Mother, what's the problem?" Catalina asked, looking up from her phone. She'd been scrolling through social media, but the angry expression on her mom's face made her immediately forget about whatever gossip she'd been reading.

"I'm going to make sure she regrets this," Georgina spat, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. "I'll make sure Queenie pays for ever daring to disgrace me this way. That little brat thinks she can just—"

Allison, who had been quietly sitting in the corner of the sitting room reading a magazine, looked up when she heard Queenie's name. Her eyebrows shot up with interest.

"What did she do?" Allison asked, though part of her already suspected what this was about. The rumors had been flying around town for days now.

"Don't tell me the rumors are true," Catalina said quickly, her voice getting higher with panic. She was hoping desperately that her mother would just laugh and say that all those crazy stories were fake, that it wasn't really Queenie who had married Jamal Deveraux. But even as she hoped, part of her mind already knew the truth. She could see it in her mother's face, in the way her hands were shaking with anger. Still, she refused to accept it until her mom said the words out loud.

"Say something, mother," she urged when Georgina just kept pacing without answering. "Tell me it's not true."

"It's the same Queenie," Georgina finally muttered, her voice bitter and defeated.

Catalina felt her world crash down around her. All her hopes shattered into a million tiny pieces that cut through her chest like glass.

"How could this be possible?" she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else. "How could that nobody, that servant girl who we took in out of the goodness of our hearts, how could she end up marrying one of the richest men in the country?"

"Not only is she now Mrs. Deveraux," Georgina continued, her voice getting louder with each word, "but she had the nerve to slap me. Can you believe that? Queenie—that ungrateful little witch—slapped me across the face in front of everyone at the office!"

Catalina's eyes went wide as saucers. Her mouth fell open and she just stared at her mother like she couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"What? How could she do that?" Catalina jumped up from her seat, her own anger starting to boil over. "Just because she somehow seduced her way into Jamal Deveraux's bed, now she thinks she's better than us? Now she's forgotten the hands that fed her for the last ten years? The roof we put over her head when she had nowhere else to go?"

"How dare she!" Catalina muttered angrily, her fists clenched at her sides. "After everything we did for her, after we treated her like family—"

"Mother probably did something to deserve that slap," Allison interrupted with a casual shrug, not even looking up from her magazine.

Both Georgina and Catalina turned to glare at her with identical expressions of outrage.

"I know that witch has already gotten into your head," Georgina snapped at her younger daughter. "So please, just leave here and go to your room. Don't make me any more angry than I already am."

But Allison just scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Oh please, mother. Like I'm the problem here."

"Mother, this isn't the time to argue with her," Catalina said quickly, trying to keep the peace while her mind raced with possibilities. "We need to focus on what matters. We need to do something about this situation. Queenie needs to come back to this family, no matter what it takes."

"She even made me lose a business deal with Jamal," Georgina added, her voice shaking with fury. "I was so close to getting that contract, and then she whispered something in his ear and he just walked away. Of course I'm not going to spare her, not even for a second. She's going to pay for this humiliation."

Allison looked up from her magazine and actually laughed out loud. "You know what? I think all of this happened because of you two."

"Excuse me?" Georgina said dangerously.

"Think about it," Allison continued, completely unbothered by her family's angry stares. "If you hadn't chased Queenie out of this house like she was some kind of criminal, she never would have met a rich billionaire to marry. She would have stayed here, cleaning your floors and cooking your meals and being grateful for whatever scraps of attention you threw her way."

"Allison—" Catalina started to warn.

"No, let me finish," Allison said, standing up now and facing both of them. "Or let's say you had been just a little bit nice to her. Maybe even after she got married to Jamal, she would have helped you secure a better position in his company. She might have put in a good word for you, helped you get those business deals you're always chasing after."

"But what did you both do instead?" Allison's voice was getting stronger, more confident. "You chased her away like she was nothing. You mistreated her every single day. You gave her treatment that wouldn't even be acceptable for a dog, let alone a human being who had been living in this house for ten years."

Georgina's face was turning purple with rage. "How dare you—"

"So this is karma now," Allison continued, cutting her mother off. "This is what happens when you treat people like garbage and then expect them to be grateful for it. And you know what? You both better get prepared, because I can already see what's going to happen next."

"What do you mean?" Catalina asked, though she looked like she didn't really want to know the answer.

"Queenie is going to make you pay," Allison said simply. "And honestly? If I was in her position, I would do exactly the same thing. If someone had treated me the way you two treated her, I would make sure to ruin their lives completely. I would make them beg on the streets for forgiveness."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Georgina said through gritted teeth.

"Don't I?" Allison asked with a bitter smile. "If I should give you one piece of good advice, mother, it would be this: go and beg Queenie for forgiveness. Though honestly, I think it's probably already too late for that. You've burned that bridge pretty thoroughly."

"I will never—" Georgina started.

"Because here's the thing you don't seem to understand," Allison interrupted again. "The more you plan to ruin her, the more you're actually planning your own downfall. She has power now. Real power. She's married to one of the most influential men in this city, maybe in the whole country. And you? You're nobody. You're just the woman who used to boss around his wife."

The room fell silent except for the sound of Georgina's heavy breathing. Catalina sank back down onto the couch, looking pale and shaken. For the first time, the reality of their situation was really starting to sink in.

"She wouldn't really try to destroy us," Catalina said weakly. "Would she? I mean, we raised her. We gave her a home when she had nothing."

Allison looked at her sister with something that might have been pity. "You really don't get it, do you? You didn't give her a home. You gave her a prison. And now the prisoner has the keys to the jail.”