Victoria hesitated, her hand hovering just an inch over the white intercom button on the wall console.
Julian: Mom, don't let him bluff you. He's an old family friend trying to protect Maya's feelings.
Victoria: He is not bluffing, Julian. He's wasting our precious billable hours.
Arthur used a small silver pocketknife to slice through the red wax seal with practiced precision.
Arthur Vance: Let the record show that the seal was intact at eleven-fifteen in the morning on October fourteenth.
Maya: What is that first page, Mr. Vance? It has my grandfather's signature at the bottom.
Arthur Vance: It is the irrevocable foundation deed for the Sterling Trust Fund, established in nineteen ninety-five.
Julian scoffed loudly, loosening his designer silk tie with nervous fingers.
Julian: A trust fund from thirty years ago? The company restructured twice since then. Old papers mean nothing.
Arthur Vance: Restructuring requires unanimous consent of all named primary trustees, Julian. Victoria signed on your behalf, but David never signed off.
Victoria: David gave me power of attorney when he entered the cardiac intensive care unit!
Arthur Vance: A medical power of attorney does not grant authority to transfer commercial assets into personal shell companies.
Maya watched her stepmother's face drain of color, turning a chalky shade of pale gray.
Maya: Shell companies? Victoria, what did you do with Dad's business accounts?
Victoria: I protected our family future! I kept this firm afloat while your father wasted thousands on hopeless medical trials!
Maya: Those clinical trials were his only chance to survive! You told me the insurance company denied the coverage!
Victoria: We couldn't drain our operational capital for a five percent survival chance, Maya! Be realistic!
Maya stood up so fast her wooden chair scraped violently against the floorboards.
Maya: You cut off his treatment funds on purpose? You told him the hospital refused the therapy!
Julian: Don't yell at my mother! She made the tough executive decision so five hundred employees wouldn't lose their paychecks!
Arthur Vance: Five hundred employees? Julian, your mother quietly laid off two hundred workers last month while leasing a private jet.
The room dropped into a deafening silence. Even the distant city traffic seemed to vanish.
Arthur Vance: And worse, David found out about the offshore transfers three weeks before he passed away in that small hospice room.
Victoria sank slowly back into her leather chair, her manicured fingers trembling against her designer handbag.
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