The heavy silver clink of Claire’s champagne glass dropping against her plate broke the dead silence of the restaurant. Her perfectly manicured fingers turned ghost-white as she gripped the tablecloth.

"End the call! Hang up right now!" Claire shrieked, lunging across the table like a cornered animal, her nails clawing toward my phone.

Before she could reach me, two men in tailored dark suits stepped out from the shadows near the restaurant's private exit. They hadn't been invited, but they had been watching the entire time. They positioned themselves smoothly between Claire and me, their presence an immovable wall of professional authority.

Daniel shrank back into his chair, looking smaller by the second. "Claire, sit down. Stop making it worse."

"Make it worse?!" Claire turned on her husband with venom. "You idiot! You absolute coward! You couldn't even break into an empty house without getting caught by a senior citizen and her hired thugs!"

"I told you, she wasn't alone!" Daniel yelled back, his voice cracking under the pressure. "The woman inside wasn't just some security guard—she knew my name! She called me by my full name the second I walked through the door!"

I took another unhurried sip of champagne. The bubbles fizzed softly against my tongue. "That would be Inspector Vance—no relation to us, thankfully," I remarked casually, looking down at my glass. "A brilliant retired detective whom I hired to audit my estate last week. But you wouldn't know anything about audits, would you, Claire? You were too busy focusing on how to split the equity of my house before my body was even cold."

"That’s my inheritance!" Claire shouted, completely dropping any remaining facade of politeness. Saliva flew from her lips as she glared at me with pure hatred. "Dad died leaving everything to you! You’re sixty-two years old! How long do you plan on living in that five-bedroom house all by yourself? You're hoarding space! We have a baby on the way, we have massive debts, and you're sitting on a two-million-dollar asset like a dragon on a gold pile!"

The restaurant went dead silent. The surrounding diners stared in absolute shock. Claire’s friends—the ones she had brought along to validate her birthday performance—slowly shifted their chairs backward, distancing themselves from the spectacle.

"A baby?" I asked softly, tilting my head. "What baby, Claire? You told me last month that you and Daniel agreed children weren't financially viable right now."

Claire froze, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

I smiled, though there was no warmth in it—only ice. "Ah, yes. The magical pregnancy card. You love deploying that one whenever you need leverage, don't you? Except I checked with your gynecologist friend, Sarah, at our country club last Tuesday. She mentioned you hadn't had an appointment in over a year. There is no baby, Claire. There is only your mounting gambling debts, Daniel’s failing startup, and two parasites desperate for a quick payday."

"You... you spied on us?" Claire whispered, her voice trembling with sheer disbelief.

"No, sweetheart," I replied, standing up slowly from my chair, smoothing down the front of my emerald-green silk dress. "I simply stopped making excuses for you. For eight months, I tried to mourn my husband in peace while you circled my house like a vulture. Tonight was your final test. And you failed miserably."

I turned to the two security operatives. "Let’s move this conversation somewhere more private. My lawyers are waiting in the study at home."