Chapter 7 - The Downfall of the Vance Empire
The illusion of Ethan’s invincibility shattered into a million jagged pieces right there beside our dining table.
For thirty seconds, my brother stood frozen, his chest heaving, his eyes darting frantically from Lucas’s tablet to my mother, and finally to me. The arrogant tycoon facade had completely melted away, leaving behind a terrified, cornered boy who realized he had played a high-stakes poker game with a man holding four aces.
“You… you can’t do this,” Ethan stammered, his voice losing all its aggressive baritone. He reached out a trembling hand toward Lucas. “Lucas, come on… we’re family! We’re partners in this city! If you release those ledgers and audit reports, Vance Enterprises will collapse in forty-eight hours. Thousands of jobs… the stock market… it’ll all go down!”
“Then maybe your father should have thought about that before he tried to bludgeon his wife to death and bury her in a demolition site,” Lucas replied coldly, slipping the tablet back into his breast pocket.
Ethan spun around, desperate, and looked directly at me. His eyes were actually watering now, glistening with pathetic, self-serving tears.
“Sabrina… please!” he pleaded, his voice cracking into a high-pitched whine. “You can’t let him do this! We’re brother and sister! Think of everything Dad gave us! If the company goes down, we lose everything—our homes, our accounts, our standing in society! Is a crazy homeless woman really worth destroying our entire lives?”
Hearing him refer to our mother—the woman standing right beside me, who had endured twenty years of absolute hell—as a "crazy homeless woman" snapped the final thread of my restraint.
I stepped forward and slapped Ethan across the face with every ounce of strength I had.
Crack.
The sound echoed sharply through the grand dining room. Ethan stumbled sideways, clutching his stinging cheek, staring at me in utter shock.
“Don't you ever call her that again,” I whispered, my voice trembling with controlled fury. “She isn't a homeless woman. She is Mary Vance. She is the woman your precious father tried to murder, and she is the rightful owner of everything you’ve been swaggering around with for the past five years.”
Mary gently reached out and rested her hand on my arm, her eyes filled with a heartbreaking mixture of sorrow and maternal pride.
“Let it go, Sabrina,” my mother whispered softly. “Don't stoop to their level. Vengeance won't bring back the twenty years we lost. I just want my life back… and I want my children to be free of this toxic curse.”
Lucas nodded slowly, looking at Ethan with absolute disdain.
“Your mother has more grace in her little finger than your father and you combined, Ethan,” Lucas said firmly. “Here are your choices: Option one—you sign over your controlling shares of Vance Enterprises to Sabrina and me by tomorrow morning, you issue a public statement acknowledging that Mary Vance is alive and that our father’s previous statements were fraudulent, and you quietly pack your bags and leave Phoenix forever.”
Ethan swallowed hard, his throat dry. “And… and option two?”
“Option two,” Lucas continued, his voice dropping into a lethal register, “is that I hand these encrypted ledgers, the medical reports from twenty years ago, and your corporate corruption files directly to the FBI and the state attorney general. You will spend the next twenty years sharing a maximum-security prison cell while the state seizes every penny of the Vance estate.”
Ethan stared at the floor. He knew he was checkmated. There was no escape, no legal loophole, no bribe big enough to dig him out of this grave.
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With shaking hands, Ethan pulled a gold-plated Montblanc pen from his breast pocket, his fingers trembling so violently he nearly dropped it.
“I’ll… I’ll sign,” he whispered, defeated.
