Chapter 17 - The Fracture of Vanity
Julian stared at the photograph held inches from his face, his breathing coming in ragged, wheezing gasps.
"No...
this is a forgery!
Nora paid you to manufacture this!" Julian screamed, turning violently toward Victoria for validation.
"Tell him, Victoria!
Tell him my father’s trust cannot be broken by a nobody with a state badge!"
Victoria, however, was already taking a deliberate step away from Julian, her sharp legal instincts calculating the sudden change in atmospheric pressure.
Her eyes scanned Gabriel’s official credentials, the vintage cassette recorder on the table, and the official seal of the state attorney general stamped on the documents.
"Julian," Victoria muttered, her voice dropping into cold, calculated detachment.
"Shut your mouth."
"Don't tell me to shut my mouth!" Julian shrieked, saliva flying from his lips as his fragile ego fractured into a thousand jagged pieces.
"I am a Vance!
I built the venture firms in San Diego!
Everything here belongs to me!
Mother loved me!
She wouldn't leave me with nothing!"
"Eleanor loved the idea of saving a child from a monster," Arthur interjected, stepping beside Gabriel with the heavy account ledgers.
"She did not love what Charles turned you into, Julian.
You spent eighteen years treating Nora like an unpaid servant while you bled Eleanor’s accounts dry for luxury suites and failed casinos.
You never asked Eleanor how she was feeling during her final rounds of chemotherapy.
You only asked if the power of attorney had cleared probate."
Gabriel motioned to the two private security guards Julian had hired.
"Gentlemen, if you don't want to be indicted as co-conspirators in an interstate obstruction charge, I suggest you return to your vehicle immediately."
May you like
The guards looked at each other, nodded once, and turned around, walking briskly out into the rain without looking back.
Julian collapsed onto his knees on the cold marble floor of the foyer, sobbing uncontrollably as Victoria pulled her phone from her purse, quietly arranging an Uber back to the airport and abandoning him without a backward glance.
