Chapter 2 - The Folder Victoria Wanted Signed
The folder looked heavier than paper should.
The attorney held it with both hands now, no longer confident enough to tuck it under one arm.
Its contents remained unreadable.
No one spoke the full terms.
No one revealed whether Richard would sign anything.
But everyone in the foyer understood what Victoria wanted it to mean.
Removal.
Erasure.
A family name cut away from the son bleeding on the marble.
Ethan remained on one knee, breathing through pain, the black drive clenched between his fingers.
Victoria stared at it.
Not at his bruised face.
Not at the torn blazer.
Not at the way he had nearly collapsed.
At the drive.
That told Ethan everything.
Richard whispered, “Ethan…”
The boy did not look at him.
He had learned tonight that a father could stand three steps away and still be absent.
Victoria recovered first.
She always did.
Her lips pulled into something that wanted to be a smile, but terror had already cracked it.
“You think that little toy scares me?”
Ethan lifted the drive slightly higher.
The red-and-blue lights outside swept across his bruised knuckles.
The attorney’s eyes followed the drive.
Then he looked at Victoria.
For the first time all night, doubt entered his face.
Victoria saw it.
Her jaw tightened.
“Do not look at me like that.”
The attorney said nothing.
Richard’s hands trembled at his sides.
Victoria turned back to Ethan.
“You were supposed to be grateful we let you come home.”
Ethan laughed once.
It hurt.
He pressed one hand to his ribs and forced himself upright another inch.
“Home?”
The word echoed against the marble.
Firelight flickered across the abstract artwork.
Snow blurred the windows.
The mansion looked beautiful, expensive, and utterly dead.
Ethan’s damaged phone lay half-visible in his blazer pocket.
Victoria noticed it too late.
Her eyes widened.
Ethan saw that recognition.
She had expected the phone destroyed.
May you like
She had not expected the watch.
Read Chapter 3 👉 Because the disinheritance folder was meant to erase Ethan, but the hidden drive made Victoria fear what had survived.
