Chapter Twenty-Seven Elise
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Elise
Her name was Sierra. She was seventeen years old and trying to get home from a concert at the Garden when my Porsche drifted into the intersection and hit her head-on.
I had been distracted.
Distracted by the man in my ear, whispering all the filthy things he wanted to do to me once we got back to his penthouse.
Distracted by his hand sliding up my thigh, the feel of his fingers like fire on bare skin, trailing up to where I wanted him most. Distracted by the coke he held under my nose at the last red light while he was whispering in my ear that the next line he took would be off my tits.
We were grinning like we were invincible, like nothing could touch us. Until that point, nothing had.
But it was too much—too much cocaine, too much vodka, too much pleasure.
Usually, I could manage it as my tolerance had only grown over the years. A couple of drinks, a bump or two to balance it out, and I was good to go. I could glide through the chaos with ease, landing pitches like a pro, and dominate brand meetings like a seasoned veteran.
But that night? That night was different.
It had started at an exclusive wellness brand launch party.
The brand had bent over backward to tell me how integral I was to their success.
It was one of those invite-only rooftop parties, and my name, of course, was on the list, as were my friends.
They had practically worshipped me for scoring them an invite, and I felt like a fucking God.
I had the private table, my girls, and the best dress. Every suit looked at my legs like they were starving. I was the grand prize of that room, and every red-blooded man wanted a piece of me.
I'd been talking to one of them all night—TJ or EJ or something like that.
I didn't really care. He was the kind of man my mother would have told me to target.
Ivy League, family money, a handsome face, and from what I could feel through his Tom Ford suit, a good-sized dick.
He said the magic words—that he had more coke back at his place—and off we went.
It was fine, I was in control.
Until I wasn't.
That night grows a little hazy the harder I try to remember it, but I can clearly remember the highlights like some horror movie. I remember my foot pressing harder on the gas, the city a blur of lights around me. I didn't realize I was drifting until—
Impact.
My memories are mostly sensory after that—the jolting impact, the sound of shattering glass, the crunch of metal. A scream—hers, or maybe it was mine. The screeching was loud, but the silence afterward was louder, too still.
I heard some people yelling to call 911. EJ, or TJ, or whatever the fuck was in my ear, cursing at me. He stumbled out of the car, vomiting on the side of the road. Sirens. Police. Trouble.
I panicked.
I drove.
I pressed the pedal down and didn't lift it until I was blocks away, the taste of blood and the coke nasal drip making me sick as my hands shook on the wheel.
"It's not real," I whispered, slapping myself and trying to wake myself up. "It wasn't real. You're okay. It's not real. You're okay."
The police banging on my door two hours later was real, as was the fingerprinting and mugshot. And my father storming into the police station with our trusted family lawyer to find me in a private holding cell was incredibly real.
My father was angry, reminding me of that moment he saw my mother destroy Claire's pictures, and he looked at me with the same level of disgust he reserved for my mother.
"Do you have any idea what this will do to my campaign?"
His voice was a low, dangerous growl. "You fled the scene, Elise! If you'd stayed, we could've called it an accident—some tragic mistake. But you ran!"
I was cold in my dress, I was coming down from the coke, and I was feeling sick from the liquor, so my patience snapped in half at his words.
"God, dad, you don't think I fucking know th—"
"Shut the fuck up!"
My father's sudden roar cut me off, so loud it reverberated off the walls. Cold shock flooded me. He never raised his voice like that at me before.
"For once in your goddamn life, shut the fuck up!"
He stormed closer to me, pointing a finger directly in my face. "You're twenty-seven years old, and you're still the same spoiled little brat. You almost killed that girl—a child! Seventeen years old, Elise! She's in a coma! The doctors are praying that she pulls through!"
I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I was usually quick with answers or retorts, but now, shock left me mute, my mind suddenly blank.
I just sat there, staring at my father as his expression shifted—from anger to irritation to disappointment to pure contempt.
The officer who had brought him and the lawyer in must have sensed it because they stepped out of the room without a word, leaving me alone with the man who helped create me.
He was breathing like he'd run a marathon, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Finally, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, loosening the tie at his neck like it was choking him.
"God... your mother ruined you," Ellis said, his voice quiet and his tone arctic.
That statement hung in the air for a few long seconds before he laughed, the sound bitter and hollow.
"Not that I'm not to blame too," he added, slowly shaking his head. "I'm probably more to blame than anyone. My weakness, my silence... it just allowed you to become what you are."
"Dad..." My voice cracked. "Please—"
"You are my greatest failure, Elise."
The cold, flat statement sucked all of the air out of the room. He looked at me, his eyes cold and hard. "Your mother is my greatest mistake, my greatest regret," he said. "But you? You are my greatest failure."
I felt frozen, completely paralyzed by this version of my father I'd never met before. His mouth twisted as if the sight of me disgusted him.
"I wanted to be a father. I wanted to do better than my parents.
They were distant, they didn't love me, they didn't even care about me, only what I could do for their image.
I became the perfect son for them. And it meant nothing.
When they died, I swore I would be the best father I could be.
I would do better for my kids, I would give them what I didn't have. .."
A haze dropped over his expression as if he had disappeared into a dream, his eyes glassy and his face soft.
"But I understood long ago that I wanted to be a father, but only if Claire was their mother. She was... everything.”
Weak. So weak.
"I love her still. More than anyone on this earth... and I betrayed her, and for what?" He spat and gave me a joyless smile. "Your mother and you. What an investment. Look at how wealthy I am."
I couldn't speak, I couldn’t breathe. My father's words rained on me like lashings, stripping me raw. Rage and pain welled up inside me, but I was frozen, stuck between wanting to scream and being too shocked to make a sound.
"I will not lose anything more because of you," he continued, now with steely determination. "You will finance the cleanup this time."
And just like that—goodbye to my trust fund.
The cost of buying silence was horrifying.
Sierra's family was paid off under an airtight NDA. If any of them tried to speak, they would be silenced. The police department was greased with a generous "donation" made to a community initiative. Officers who saw my face that night were rewarded with unexpected bonuses.
The story itself was rewritten into a random hit-and-run with an anonymous suspect in custody. The man I was with kept his mouth shut, too, considering the ounce of coke in his pocket would've buried him right alongside me.
The security footage from multiple street cameras was wiped clean. My baby—my ruined Porsche—was removed and destroyed, no questions asked.
And all of that, every favor, every bribe, every greased handshake, was for nothing.
CABOT COLLAPSE: Inside the Family Built on Lies, Power, and Cruelty
That was the title of the expose in The Globe.
Someone talked. Not completely surprising to me. When you start piling up secrets, they're hard to keep track of, and some things are bound to fall through the cracks.
So someone squealed to a hungry journalist.
It was impossible to keep track of who at this point, and my father never could track down the anonymous source.
They were close to us. They knew it all.
Speculation included an au pair of the past, a dismissed maid, one of my mother and father's numerous fired assistants, and a disgruntled political staffer.
It was like trying to catch smoke. Whoever did it cashed in and fucked off.
Thankfully, the Sierra incident remained buried, her family was terrified of legal repercussions from the NDA.
But that wasn't needed to paint a picture.
The truth of the torrid affair between Ellis and Bella, the devastating betrayal of philanthropist sweetheart Claire Salvatore (formerly Cabot), my mother's cruel treatment of the help over the years, my DUIs as a teenager, and my own bratty behavior.
We were no longer the picture of the perfect American Dream family. We were pure scandal.
Ellis Cabot's political prospects, his mayoral run, and his congressional ambitions died with a whimper.
My own career collapsed overnight. Andrew Abbot called me into his office, spoke about optics, reputation, and public opinion. I was dismissed indefinitely, humiliated as I walked out of the building with eyes and whispers following me the entire way.
My bank account? Practically empty. I wasn't the most frugal person to begin with. Dinners, bottle service, and last-minute getaways with my friends, all paid for by me and my credit cards. Without the comforting pulse of my trust fund refilling every month, I was effectively broke.