Chapter 7 - The Mask Shatters
Stephanie took a step into the room, her hand tightening around her designer handbag. "Charles, put those down. You don't know what you're looking at. Those are... those are just preliminary business proposals my father’s firm was evaluating."
"Is that why my mother's signature is forged at the bottom?" I held up the document, stepping out from behind the desk. "Is that why you hired two shady neurologists to declare a completely healthy sixty-nine-year-old woman incompetent? So you could ship her off to Pinecrest Manor three states away while you pave over her home?"
Stephanie’s eyes darted toward Emma, flashing with pure venom. "You brought him here? You little traitor—"
"Don't look at her," I stepped directly into Stephanie's line of sight, towering over her. "Emma has a conscience. Something you and your father clearly sold off years ago."
"Charles, listen to me!" Stephanie took a quick step forward, switching instantly into the persuasive, smooth tone she used when managing difficult clients. "It’s not what you think! The farm is failing! Your mother is working herself to death on ninety acres of dirt that barely turns a profit! We were going to secure her financial future! She would have lived in luxury at Pinecrest!"
"She loves that dirt, Stephanie," I replied, my voice dropping into a lethal register. "My father died on that dirt. I grew up on it. And my mother will live out her days on it. You didn't want to save her. You wanted to rob her."
"You're an engineer, Charles!" she spat, her composure cracking as she realized she couldn't spin the narrative. "You know how land development works! That property is sitting right on the municipal growth boundary! It’s going to be developed eventually whether it's by us or someone else! Why shouldn't we make millions off it?"
"Because it belongs to my family," I said quietly, gathering the original paper documents and sliding them into my leather satchel. "And because you forged legal paperwork to steal it."
"You can't take those!" she lunged forward, reaching for the bag.
May you like
I pulled it back effortlessly, stepping around her. "Try to stop me, Stephanie. I dare you to call the police right now and report that I took your forged legal documents."
She stood frozen in the center of the office, her lips trembling with rage, unable to utter a single word.
