Chapter 4 - The Twist in the LedgerThe revelation hung in the air like a physical weight, suffocating and sharp. Lily tightened her grip around Ethan, her mind racing. Something didn't add up. Serena was too confident, too eager to hand over a narrative that conveniently painted Victor as a participant in his first wife's demise.
"You're lying, Serena," Lily said, her voice cutting through the heavy silence of the studio with surprising firmness.
Serena snapped her head around, glaring at the maid with absolute venom. "Excuse me? You're nothing more than hired help! What could you possibly know about corporate trusts and family law?"
"I know that forged documents don't hold up under forensic audit," Lily replied steadily, stepping further into the room and placing Ethan down behind a heavy velvet armchair, whispering for him to stay put. "If Elena was planning an audit against her husband and her brother, she wouldn't hide it in a loose leather journal that anyone could pick up off a desk. She would have deposited it with her legal counsel."
Serena’s eyes flickered with a microsecond of genuine panic before she masked it with a sneer. "You're bluffing."
"Am I?" Lily pointed at the journal in Serena’s hands. "Look at the gold-embossed lettering on the cover. The spine is brand new. Genuine antique leather from five years ago doesn't smell like fresh petroleum-based dye and modern book-binding glue. You had that ledger printed yesterday, Serena. You planted it here, hoping to blackmail Mr. Sterling into handing over the entire estate once your plan to frame me for child endangerment failed."
Victor slowly straightened up, his eyes snapping from Serena to the book in her hands. The fog of shock cleared from his mind, replaced by a cold, blistering fury.
"Is that true?" Victor asked, his voice deathly quiet as he advanced toward Serena. "You manufactured a fake diary just to seize the trust?"
Serena backed away, her heels catching against the edge of a heavy Persian rug. "Don't listen to her! She's lying! I found it in the drawer—"
"You didn't find anything," a cool, sharp voice echoed from the doorway behind Lily and Ethan.
Everyone whipped around. Standing in the entrance of the sealed room, flanked by two local police officers and a state prosecutor carrying a digital tablet, was Julian—Victor's trusted corporate lawyer and Elena's estranged younger brother.
Julian stepped into the room, his expression like carved granite. He looked at Serena, then down at the reel-to-reel tape recorder still hissing softly on the desk.
"You can stop pretending, Serena," Julian said, pulling a folded document from his briefcase. "The police intercepted your offshore wire transfers thirty minutes ago. We knew about your scheme with your family to drain the trust fund from the moment you hacked into the estate’s auxiliary server."
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Serena’s face turned completely white. The journal slipped from her trembling fingers, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull thud. "Julian... you promised you'd help me cover it up if I got the signatures..."
"I promised nothing of the sort," Julian replied coldly, nodding to the officers. "Take her away."
