Instead came the slow, elegant butchery only generational wealth can perform with a straight face: Anonymous calls at 3 a.m. Legal letters thick enough to stop bullets, promising defamation suits that would bankrupt them before breakfast.
Business contracts that had been offered to her father evaporating like morning mist.
Men in excellent suits appearing on their front lawn at dusk, just standing there. Not speaking. Just… present.
Neighbors who'd once brought casseroles suddenly crossing the street. Bank accounts quietly flagged. Credit lines severed. Invitations to every meaningful event in Paradise revoked with the speed of a guillotine blade.
Within two months, Selene's parents were ghosts in their own city. They packed what they could carry, sold the house at a loss that still felt like robbery, and fled beyond the gates like refugees from a war nobody else acknowledged had been fought.
