“What on earth are you talking about, Camilla?”

I presented the silver tray directly to her.

Her arrogant smile disappeared the moment she saw the final number.

“You have completely lost your mind! You know very well that I am not paying this!”

“You stated multiple times in front of everyone that you were inviting the entire room today.”

“That was obviously just a figure of speech! Tell Lucas to handle this bill!”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, so please go ahead and call him right now.”

Beatrice pulled out her phone with a triumphant sneer.

“With great pleasure!”

She immediately put the call on speakerphone, clearly hoping to humiliate me in front of all thirty-eight friends.

Lucas answered after several nervous rings.

“Hello? Mom?”

“Son, I am at the restaurant right now, and your crazy wife is trying to charge me $23,289! Tell her immediately to stop playing games and sign the transfer documents to hand the business over to you!”

A heavy silence followed on the other end.

Even Beatrice stopped smirking.

Finally, Lucas spoke in a shaky voice.

“Mom… what on earth did you just do?”

PART 3

“What do you mean, ‘What did I do?’” Beatrice snapped into the phone. “I brought my friends here just like I told you I would to help promote our restaurant!”

Lucas exhaled sharply, struggling to catch his breath.

“Mom, it is not our restaurant.”

Beatrice froze in the middle of the crowded room.

“Stop joking around with me, Lucas.”

“I am not joking! I never put a single dollar into that business! The restaurant belongs entirely to Camilla!”

The surrounding women began exchanging confused, uncomfortable glances.

Beatrice tightened her grip on the phone until her knuckles turned white.

“But you prepared the legal transfer documents!”

“Yes, I drafted them myself, but Camilla never agreed to sign anything over to me!”

A wealthy woman sitting near Beatrice leaned closer.

“So why on earth did you tell us this luxury establishment was practically yours already?”

Beatrice pretended not to hear her and spoke frantically into the phone.

“Lucas, explain to them right now that you are taking out loans to save this restaurant because it is going bankrupt!”

Another uncomfortable silence followed.

“Mom… that is a lie, too.”

The color vanished from Beatrice’s face.

“What did you say?”

“The restaurant is not bankrupt, and it never was!”

Nobody in the private room dared take another sip.

Lucas continued talking nervously over speakerphone, slowly unraveling his own lies.

“I had massive personal debts, Mom! I needed money desperately, which is why I took funds directly from the commercial account!”

“How much money?” Beatrice demanded, her voice cracking.

“A lot…”

I stepped forward and spoke directly into the call.

“It was nearly forty thousand dollars in unauthorized transfers and personal expenses, all of which are documented.”

Lucas went silent.

One of Beatrice’s closest friends stood up.

“And what about that young girl you were boasting about earlier, Beatrice?”

Beatrice glared at her, but Lucas was already trapped.

“Yes, there was someone else,” Lucas confessed miserably. “Part of the money went toward luxury hotel rooms, expensive gifts, and trips.”

A shocked murmur moved through the room.

Beatrice seemed unable to process that her own son was destroying her entire false image in less than five minutes.

“You lied to me, Lucas,” she whispered in disbelief.

“I needed you to pressure Camilla into giving me control of the business! I thought if I gained legal access, I could use the restaurant’s revenue to fix my debts!”

One of the prominent socialites rose from her chair.

“Beatrice, you explicitly told all of us that your son was the sole owner of this venue!”

“I was only repeating what he explained to me!” Beatrice shouted back defensively.

“You also promised that you were paying for this entire banquet!” another woman added angrily, picking up the massive bill. “Who is going to pay for all this expensive food and wine now?”

Beatrice looked desperately toward the exit.

I stepped calmly into her path.

“The person who organized the event, placed the massive orders, and publicly announced that they were treating everyone should be held legally responsible. If you believe Lucas should cover it, you are welcome to work that out with him.”

Beatrice lifted the phone again.

“Lucas, pay this bill right now!”

“I cannot, Mom.”

“What do you mean you cannot?”

“I do not have any money left!”

The call ended as Lucas hung up.

Nobody moved for several seconds.

The room was suffocatingly quiet.

I calmly lifted the receipt from the silver tray, exposing the legal documents beneath it.

“There is something else you all should know,” I said clearly.

I handed Beatrice the certified copy of the court ruling.

“As of this morning, the final decree was signed. Lucas and I are officially divorced, and we are no longer husband and wife.”

Beatrice blinked rapidly as she stared at the seal.

“That… that cannot be real.”

“It is entirely real, Beatrice. Legally speaking, we are no longer related in any way, and even if we were, that would never give your family the right to walk into my business, consume thousands of dollars in high-end goods, and leave without paying.”

Beatrice looked down at the documents, then at her furious friends, and finally toward the glass doors.

“Camilla, please… we are family. Do not do this to me.”

“When you referred to me as nothing more than a simple servant in front of thirty-eight people today, were we family then?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“When Lucas was stealing funds from my company account to finance his mistress, were we family then?”

Silence.

“When you brought legal papers to force me out of my own business, were we family?”

Beatrice’s friends began stepping away from her, clearly distancing themselves from the situation.

“I only came today because Beatrice assured us everything was taken care of!” one woman declared loudly.

“Me too!” another chimed in. “I am certainly not getting dragged into legal trouble because of her family’s lies!”

Beatrice began crying in real panic.

“My son deceived me, too!”

“You can explain your side of the story to the proper authorities,” I replied firmly. “But the outstanding debt for this meal remains unpaid.”

Gavin walked up beside me.

“Should I call security, Camilla?”

“Just to keep the peace, Gavin. Nobody is going to be harmed, but if anyone refuses to pay their portion or attempts to leave without providing full identification, please dial the police immediately.”

Once Beatrice realized I wouldn’t back down, she started begging desperately.

“Just write it off as advertising, Camilla! This restaurant makes so much money, so twenty thousand dollars is not going to ruin you!”

Her plea confirmed everything I had always believed about how she viewed me.

My endless hours of work meant nothing to her.

The fresh ingredients, my employees’ wages, and my skill meant nothing either.

She simply believed I could work harder and replace whatever she took for her convenience.

“No,” I said coldly.

Beatrice buried her face in her hands.

Within minutes, her friends began arguing among themselves, demanding she settle the bill or insisting they would only pay for what they personally consumed.

The admiration surrounding her all afternoon dissolved into resentment.

In the end, we had to call the local police when Beatrice refused to cooperate and several women tried to push past the host stand.

I gave the officers the master receipt, detailed order logs, and high-definition security footage showing Beatrice placing the orders.

The police took formal statements and collected identification from everyone present.

I never raised my voice or demanded that anyone be dragged away in handcuffs.

There was no need for a dramatic scene.

I simply wanted Beatrice to learn that the word “family” was not a blank check to steal from me.

After several women paid their individual shares and others signed formal police acknowledgments of the debt, the dining room finally emptied.

Gavin shook his head in absolute disbelief.

“I have truly never witnessed anything like that in my entire career.”

“Neither have I, Gavin.”

Later that evening, while the kitchen crew deep-cleaned the line, the investigating detective called me.

Beatrice was claiming at the station that she had genuinely believed her son would cover the bill.

While I explained the financial history to the detective, a heavy knock sounded at my office door.

It was Lucas.

He entered wearing a wrinkled suit, pale and completely broken.

“Did you really report my mother to the police, Camilla?”

“Your mother hosted an extravagant banquet that cost over twenty-three thousand dollars and then refused to pay for it.”

Lucas began pacing across the hardwood floor.

“She is completely insane! Why on earth did you let her order so much food?”

“Because she is a grown adult who publicly announced to dozens of witnesses that she was paying for the entire party.”

Lucas gripped his hair tightly, panic filling his face.

“This is going to ruin me even further!”

I stared at him in disbelief.

He didn’t ask whether his mother was okay.

He didn’t ask how I felt after everything that happened.

He was still entirely focused on himself.

“Why would her bill ruin you, Lucas?”