Chapter 11
Eleanor did not raise her voice, nor did she drop the candlestick. She simply walked across the Persian rug toward the desk, her eyes fixed on the open ledger resting beneath the brass lamp.
"I see you found it," Eleanor said quietly, her tone devoid of the fierce defiance she had displayed at the dinner table. There was only a profound, exhausted resignation in her posture.
"Medical committal, Aunt Eleanor?" Julian asked, his voice shaking with disbelief as he looked up at her. "You didn't just push her out of the company; you locked her away in a private psychiatric facility and told the world she drowned in the lake."
"She was unwell, Julian," Eleanor said, her voice trembling slightly as she placed the candlestick on the corner of the desk. "She wanted to sell her shares to an outside competitor—a man who wanted to dismantle everything our father built. She would have destroyed the company in a matter of months out of pure spite."
"So you stole her life? You fabricated her death and raised her child in secret while you sat on a throne built on stolen corporate shares?" Julian stood up, pushing the chair back against the wall. "Maya isn't just an opportunist looking for a payout. She is Catherine’s daughter, and she has every legal and moral right to tear this empire down."
"If Maya takes this to court, the estate will be seized by the federal government for corporate fraud and kidnapping," Eleanor said, stepping closer, her eyes pleading for a shred of understanding. "Everything we have—the foundation, the historic properties, the investments—will be liquidated. Is that what you want? To see our family name dragged through the mud and reduced to nothing?"
May you like
"Our family name was reduced to nothing thirty years ago the moment you locked Catherine away," Julian replied firmly. "The only way to stop this from destroying what little integrity we have left is to surrender voluntarily. We sign the transfer documents over to Maya, and we let the courts decide the rest."
Eleanor stared at her nephew, realizing that the cold, calculating businessman she had trained to take over the empire had developed a conscience she could no longer manipulate. The iron grip she had maintained over the Vance legacy for three decades was slipping through her fingers like dry sand.
