Chapter 3 - The Matriarch’s Verdict
Grandma Beatatrice pushed herself up from her chair in the front row.
The movement was slow, deliberate, and entirely commanding. Despite her seventy-five years, she carried herself with an aristocratic grace that had anchored our family through generations. Every head turned toward her as she smoothed the fabric of her silver dress and began walking slowly up the center aisle toward the stage.
Marcus instinctively straightened up, his lifelong conditioning kicking in. "Mother... please. Don't listen to her. Ayla is vindictive. She's twisting corporate restructuring documents to make it look like—"
Slap.
The sound of Grandma’s palm connecting cleanly across Marcus’s cheek echoed like a gunshot through the massive ballroom.
The entire room gasped in unison. Marcus staggered back a step, holding his cheek, his mouth hanging open in sheer shock. In the history of our family, no one had ever dared touch Marcus Vance, let alone strike him publicly.
Grandma Beatatrice didn't look at him twice. She stepped past him, her eyes shining with unshed tears, and stopped right in front of me. She reached out, her frail, warm hands trembling slightly as she cupped my cheeks.
"My brilliant, brave girl," she murmured softly, her voice carrying effortlessly through the microphone clipped to her lapel. "For five years, I asked Marcus about the quarterly statements for the trust. For five years, he told me everything was secure, that the market was down, that I didn't need to worry my head about numbers. I trusted my only son."
She turned slowly around, facing the terrified crowd of sixty guests, her gaze finally landing on Briana and Derek, who looked ready to melt into the floorboards.
"My son is a thief," Beatatrice declared, her voice ringing with absolute, unyielding authority. "And his coward of a son-in-law is a parasite who dragged my granddaughters into his criminal filth. If Ayla hadn't had the courage to dig through the dirt they left behind, I would have died penniless in a nursing home while they lived off my blood."
Briana burst into loud, hysterical sobs, burying her face in her hands as humiliating whispers erupted from the surrounding tables. Several family members who had spent the last week texting me nasty lectures about being a "selfish sister" suddenly found very interesting patterns to study on their dinner napkins.
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Marcus tried to salvage what was left of his shattered dignity. "Mother, you don't understand the legal exposure—if the authorities get these files, we are all ruined. The family name—"
"The family name was destroyed the moment you decided to steal from your mother and forge your daughter’s signature," Beatatrice interrupted, her voice snapping like a whip. She turned back to me, squeezing my hands tightly. "Do what you need to do, Ayla. Burn it all down."
