But the financial execution was even more devastating.
Because Margaret had leveraged everything they owned to maintain their facade of extreme wealth, the Apex foreclosure left them with nothing. Three days after the broadcast, paparazzi helicopters hovered over the Carter estate, broadcasting live as moving trucks and county sheriffs arrived at the property.
The nation watched in schadenfreude as Margaret Carter, weeping hysterically and wearing dark sunglasses, was escorted off her manicured lawns. Movers carried out her antique furniture, her imported art, and Caleb’s luxury sports cars to be auctioned off to satisfy the debt.
Caleb tried to salvage his life. He attempted to reach out to his Ivy League frat brothers, his old business partners, begging for a job, a loan, a place to crash. But his name was toxic. He was blacklisted across every corporate sector in the country. To associate with Caleb Carter was corporate suicide.
With his bank accounts frozen and his trust fund liquidated by the bank, Caleb was forced into the very life he had despised me for. He ended up renting a tiny, mold-infested studio apartment on the outskirts of the city. To pay for basic groceries and his mounting legal fees, the former golden heir took a job working the graveyard shift at a distribution warehouse, hauling heavy boxes for minimum wage.
The final nail in the coffin came two months later, inside the sterile, wood-paneled walls of the family court.
