“Our… our options?” Julian stammered, his voice dropping into a panicked, high-pitched whine. “Arthur, that’s our entire net worth. We don’t have liquid cash outside the stock! We owe hundreds of millions to the venture banks!”
“Then I suggest you find a good bankruptcy attorney,” Arthur noted coldly. “Because Section One of the final testament leaves the twenty-four-billion-dollar estate, the voting control of the quantum network, the Nob Hill penthouse, the Malibu estate, and all intellectual property rights entirely, unconditionally, and exclusively to Evelyn Marie Vane.”
Chloe spun around, her eyes wide, wild, and wild with a terrifying, desperate greed. She dropped to her knees right there on the hardwood floor, crawling toward the end of the table where Evelyn sat.
“Evelyn… please,” Chloe sobbed, reaching out her diamond-encrusted fingers to touch Evelyn’s shoes. “We were children. We didn’t understand. Julian forced us to write those emails. We were brainwashed by the lawyers. You’re our mother, Evelyn. You’ve been our mother for twenty years. You can’t leave us on the street. The banks will take everything I own!”
Evelyn looked down at Chloe. For two decades, she had watched this girl walk into rooms and pretend she didn’t exist. She had watched Chloe tell the media that Evelyn was a “gold-digging stain” on the family name.
Evelyn slowly pulled her feet back, preventing Chloe’s hands from making contact with her hem.
“I am not your mother, Chloe,” Evelyn said, her voice quiet, steady, and carrying the immense weight of twenty years of silence. “Your mother was a beautiful, fragile soul whom you tortured until she broke. And for twenty years, you treated me like a servant who had stolen your inheritance. You didn’t want a mother. You wanted a scapegoat.”
Julian stood up, his face bloated with rage, his hands slamming onto the quartz table. “You think you can run this company? You’re an art historian! The board will mutiny by Monday morning! Wall Street will crash the stock if a nobody is sitting in the chairman’s seat!”
“The board,” Evelyn said, looking up at Julian with a calm that terrified him far more than any shout could have, “was replaced at midnight by the automated system your father built. The new board consists of the compliance attorneys from the SEC and the auditors from the Department of Justice who are currently reviewing your backdoor code.”
She stood up. She looked out the massive glass windows toward the San Francisco bay, where the sun was finally beginning to pierce through the heavy gray fog, illuminating the water in brilliant, blinding gold.
“Arthur,” Evelyn said, her voice light and free for the first time in twenty years. “Please have security escort these three out of the building. They have fifteen minutes to clear their desks at the headquarters before their digital security passes are permanently wiped from the grid.”
“Evelyn, you vindictive bitch!” Tristan roared, rushing forward, but two massive, dark-suited security guards who had been waiting outside the double doors instantly stepped into the room, pinning his arms behind his back with an iron grip.
“Please do not stain my carpets on your way out,” Evelyn murmured, not even turning around to watch them as they were dragged, screaming and cursing, out into the cold Nob Hill air.
She stood alone in the twenty-four-billion-dollar penthouse, the silence finally peaceful, the long, dark winter of her life completely over.
