chapter 104

chapter 104


The news exploded like wildfire.

By noon, every major media outlet was broadcasting the shocking footage: Sophie Carter, the pride of the Carter family, caught red-handed trying to kidnap Adrian Drake’s newborn twins.
The once-proud Carter name was now dripping in disgrace.

The footage of Sophie cursing at the babies, plotting their disappearance, and being arrested in tears looped again and again on television, social media, and private forums.

The Drakes made no public comment — they didn’t have to.
The evidence spoke for itself.

At the Carter mansion, chaos reigned.

Mr. Carter — who had built his empire from scratch through years of sweat, blood, and sleepless nights — watched in horror as one partner after another called to cut ties.

"We trusted your family," one shareholder snapped over the phone, "and now you’ve proven you're incapable of managing even your own household. We cannot risk our reputations being linked to yours!"

Another ruthless message followed:

"We're pulling out our investments effective immediately. Your daughter’s scandal is too big. We cannot recover from the bad publicity."

One by one, partnerships collapsed like a house of cards.
Stock prices plummeted by the hour.
The Carter business, once a shining beacon in the city’s elite circle, was now a sinking ship.

Mr. Carter staggered back from his office desk, his hand clutching his chest.

"Sir!" his assistant cried, rushing forward as Mr. Carter gasped for air.
His face turned pale.
Sweat beaded on his forehead.

He collapsed to the ground before anyone could react.

"Call an ambulance!" the assistant screamed.

The mansion descended into pandemonium as paramedics stormed in, trying to revive him.

Mrs. Carter stood frozen at the foot of the staircase, trembling violently as she watched her husband — the man who had always been her pillar — taken away on a stretcher, barely clinging to life.

Meanwhile, Sophie sat alone in a cold, dim holding cell.

The realization of what she had done — and what she had lost — gnawed at her like a starving wolf.

The guards barely looked at her.
Her phone — once buzzing endlessly with messages from admirers and friends — was now dead silent.

Outside, the world she once ruled had turned against her.

The high society she once flaunted herself in now whispered cruelly behind her back:

"That’s the Carter daughter, isn’t it?"
"The one who tried to kidnap babies for a man who didn’t love her?"
"How pathetic... How desperate!"

Doors that once opened eagerly at her approach were now slammed shut in her face.
Former friends blocked her, deleted photos with her, and pretended they had never known her.

Even in private social groups, she became a laughingstock.

Memes circulated with her mugshot under captions like:
"From Cinderella to Cellblock Queen."
"When you lose a billionaire and lose your mind too."

Sophie curled up on the narrow bench, sobbing into her arms, her heart pounding with regret and hatred.

She thought bitterly:
All for what? For a man who never wanted me in the first place.

At the hospital, doctors surrounded Mr. Carter’s bed.

He had suffered a mild heart attack from the stress.
Though stabilized, his spirit was broken.

He kept mumbling one thing over and over, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes:

"My company... my life’s work... gone... because of her..."

Mrs. Carter sat beside him, devastated and helpless.
The shame was unbearable.

Gone was the proud Carter name.
Gone was the golden future they once envisioned for Sophie.

All that was left was ruin — and a daughter who now sat behind cold, steel bars, despised by the very society she once dreamt of ruling.

Their fall was complete.
And there would be no redemption.

The Carter family, once the pride of the city, was now a cautionary tale — a name spoken only in whispers of disgrace.

Mr. Carter remained in the hospital, weak, paralyzed partly on one side from the heart attack. His empire had crumbled overnight, leaving him clinging not just to life, but to the fragments of a once-proud legacy.

But for Mrs. Carter, the humiliation was unbearable.

She could not step outside without feeling the weight of hundreds of judging eyes.
She could not answer her phone without hearing either vile insults or stony silence.
All the women she once proudly mingled with now treated her like filth — avoiding her in public, shunning her at charity events, disinviting her from every social circle.

One evening, while sitting silently by her husband's hospital bed, Mrs. Carter finally snapped.

Her hands trembled as she picked up her handbag and quietly slipped away.
No one noticed.
No one cared anymore.

She walked through the dark city streets like a ghost, her mind blank, her heart heavy.
When she reached the tallest hotel rooftop — the one where she once attended glamorous galas — she didn’t even hesitate.

The stars above twinkled mockingly, as if laughing at her downfall.

Without a word, without a scream, she stepped over the edge.

By morning, the newspapers were brutal:

"DISGRACED SOCIALITE ENDS HER LIFE — THE CARTER CURSE CONTINUES."

The world that once worshipped them now tore them apart piece by piece.

Sophie's release from custody was not a celebration — it was a funeral for her existence.

No home to return to.
No family to run to.
No friends to help her.

The mansion had been seized by the banks to recover debts.
The family cars were auctioned off like common scrap metal.
Even her expensive designer clothes had been taken by creditors.

Sophie — once the diamond of the city — now wandered the streets with nothing but the clothes on her back.

Passersby recognized her, some laughing, others shaking their heads in pity.

"Isn't that Sophie Carter?" a woman whispered loudly on the sidewalk.
"The spoiled brat who destroyed her whole family because of a man who didn’t want her?"

"She deserves it," another spat.
"Pride goes before a fall."

Sophie's heart was heavy with humiliation. She tried to hide her face beneath the hood of a tattered sweatshirt she found abandoned on a park bench.

But there was no hiding from her shame.

Homeless, starving, humiliated — Sophie had nothing.
Not even the will to cry anymore.

At night, she huddled near an abandoned alley, surrounded by broken bottles and the coldness of strangers’ indifference.

Her thoughts haunted her:
If only I had accepted reality...
If only I hadn't tried to force love where there was none...
If only I hadn't ruined my family...

Her mother's death haunted her most.
A constant, gnawing guilt that gnawed at her soul like rats at a carcass.

She had no future.
No forgiveness.

Only the long, cold nights ahead.

Meanwhile, the rest of the city prepared for a grand event — the one Sophie had once imagined herself at the center of:
Adrian and Rita’s wedding.

But for Sophie Carter, her story had ended long before the wedding bells could ever toll.