Chapter 14 - The Midnight AllianceBack at the house, Arthur placed a thick, encrypted flash drive next to my coffee mug.
"What's this?" I asked, eyeing the small piece of plastic.
"Proof of everything," Arthur said. "Bernice didn't just steal you; she embezzled three million dollars from your father's personal accounts right after the accident, funneling it into offshore accounts under a fake identity. And Savannah's family was helping her launder it through shell companies for the last two years."
I looked up, stunned. "Wait... Bernice and Savannah's family were working together?"
"At the very beginning, yes," Arthur nodded. "They formed an uneasy alliance to split the estate once you turned twenty-eight and signed the corporate waiver. But greed got the better of them. Savannah realized Bernice was a liability, and Bernice realized Savannah was planning to cut her out entirely. That’s why your mother attacked Savannah today—she wanted to force a miscarriage so the bloodline clause in the trust would void entirely, reverting the money back to a public charity where Bernice had a backdoor trustee position."
The sheer scale of manipulation made my head spin. Every interaction, every sweet word, every shared smile over the last three years had been calculated by two competing predators using me as their prize.
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"So what do we do now?" I asked, my voice steadying as cold resolve replaced shock. "I'm twenty-eight. The trust fund unlocks tomorrow morning at midnight. If I don't sign the corporate charter papers, what happens?"
"If you don't sign, the board takes control, and the company goes into liquidation," Arthur said grimly. "Which means Savannah's backers win, and your family's legacy is wiped out forever. We have to beat them at their own game. And to do that... we need to visit Bernice in holding."
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