Victoria: You cannot threaten me in my own home, Robert!
Robert: This is not your home. You don't own a single brick of this estate.
Victoria: We signed our prenuptial agreement on Friday! Half of this mansion belongs to me!
Robert: That prenuptial agreement was never filed with the county clerk, Victoria.
Victoria: What are you talking about?! My attorney took the papers to the courthouse!
Robert: Your attorney was stopped in the parking lot by federal marshals.
Victoria clutched her head, her manicured fingers pulling at her styled hair.
Victoria: Why would federal marshals care about a private family prenuptial agreement?!
Robert: Because your attorney carried forged probate deeds for Clara's estate.
Victoria: Those deeds were completely legitimate! Clara signed them before her surgery!
Robert: Clara was in a medically induced coma on the date written on those documents.
Victoria backed up along the edge of the pool, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
Victoria: She signed an advance proxy! Her doctors verified her mental capacity!
Robert: Her doctors were paid three hundred thousand dollars through your offshore account in Nassau.
Victoria: That was a research grant for the hospital's cardiovascular wing!
Robert: The hospital never saw a penny of it, Victoria. The wire went to the chief surgeon's private yacht fund.
Victoria: Who gave you my offshore account numbers?! Those records are encrypted!
Robert: Your brother gave them to me, Victoria.
Victoria gasped, her jaw falling open as if she had been slapped across the face a second time.
Victoria: Marcus...? Marcus would never betray his own sister!
Robert: Marcus took a plea deal with the Department of Justice at eight o'clock this morning.
Victoria: That coward! That weak, pathetic coward! He swore he would protect the family!
Robert: He protected himself from thirty years in federal prison, Victoria.
Victoria: He gave you the Cayman files too?!
Robert: He gave me every single email, bank statement, and fake signature stamp.
Robert pulled a thick manila folder from his jacket, tossing it onto the glass patio table.
Robert: Do you recognize page twelve, Victoria?
Victoria: I don't want to see your garbage legal threats!
Robert: Read it aloud so the staff can hear what kind of monster walked into this family.
Victoria stared at the white paper, her body trembling so violently the table shook.
Victoria: 'In the event of the minor heir's sudden accidental demise, sixty percent of corporate voting stock transfers to Victoria Vance'...
Robert: You wrote that clause into the trust amendment yourself, didn't you?
Victoria: My corporate lawyers drafted standard survivorship language!
Robert: Standard survivorship language doesn't assign ninety million dollars to a stepmother who married into the family two months ago.
Victoria: I was securing my future! I gave up my career in New York to marry you!
Robert: You gave up nothing, Victoria. Your New York gallery went bankrupt two years ago.
Victoria: That was an economic downturn! Everyone in the art market suffered!
Robert: You used our wedding announcements to borrow twenty million dollars from private loan sharks in Manhattan.
Victoria took two fast steps back, her high heels clicking dangerously close to the deep water.
Victoria: Those loans were personal investments! They have nothing to do with Sterling Global!
Robert: You put this house up as collateral, Victoria.
Victoria: I had the legal right as your partner!
Robert: You had zero rights, because Clara's will put this entire property into Toby's name.
Victoria: Toby is a baby! He doesn't know what money is! He doesn't need an empire!
Robert: But you do, don't you? Enough to drown a child in eight feet of water.
The distant wail of police sirens cut through the quiet air, growing louder by the second.
Victoria looked toward the iron front gates, her face turning as white as bone.