Simon opened his briefcase and slid a folder onto the table. It was thicker than the envelope in my hands—bulging with paper, tabbed, organized, prepared like a weapon.
“Truth,” Simon said simply. “About what you’ve been attempting to do.”
He flipped it open and pulled out documents one by one.
Bank transfers.
Emails.
Notarized letters.
Account information.
All bearing familiar names.
My mother’s.
My father’s.
Brooke’s.
Simon’s finger tapped one page. “Your parents attempted to reroute the family trust into a private account under your sister’s name,” he said, his voice almost gentle. “If Alyssa had signed those papers today, everything your grandmother built would have been permanently transferred out of her reach.”
My mother’s face drained of color. “That’s not—”
“It’s taken out of context,” my father snapped.
Simon tilted his head, the faintest edge of amusement appearing like a blade’s reflection. “Oh? The clause you mentioned,” he said to my mother, “the one penalizing irresponsible heirs. I wrote that clause. It applies to fraudulent trustees, not beneficiaries.”
Brooke swallowed hard. Her phone lowered fully now, her fingers gripping it like it might save her.
For a moment, something inside me shifted.
Pain turned to clarity.
Clarity turned to resolve.
My revenge, I realized, didn’t need to be loud. It didn’t need to be dramatic. It didn’t need to be a scream.
It could be legal.
Precise.
