Chapter 4: The Fall of the Matriarch
“It’s not a deepfake, Mother,” Lucas said, his voice echoing off the glass ceiling. He stepped onto the stage, standing right beside her. “Every frame is certified by digital forensics. And the timing couldn't be better.”
Eleanor grabbed his lapel, her voice dropping into a desperate, venomous hiss. “Lucas! Have you lost your mind? I built this empire! I made you! You are ruining our family name over a gold-digging—!”
“You built this empire on intimidation and violence,” Lucas interrupted, gently but firmly removing her hands from his jacket. “And you wrote the Vance Trust bylaws yourself thirty years ago. Remember Clause 14, Mother? The morality and conduct clause?”
Eleanor stumbled backward, the ground vanishing beneath her feet. Clause 14 stated that any primary trustee convicted of a violent felony or public assault resulting in bodily harm to an immediate family member was automatically and permanently stripped of all corporate voting rights and disinherited from the estate.
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“You can’t do this,” Eleanor whispered, her iron facade completely crumbling as she realized she had weaponized a legal trap that had just snapped shut around her own neck.
“I’m not doing anything,” Lucas replied coldly. “The law is just doing its job. The police are waiting downstairs to take your statement regarding the assault on my wife and unborn child. And as for your shares? They’ve already been transferred into the newborn trust fund—under Maya’s sole administration.”
