Lucian: Are you able to stand up, Clara? Let me help you onto the leather sofa.
Clara: My leg hurts so badly... She pressed all her weight into my calf with her shoe.
Lucian: Lean on me. Put your arm around my neck. I've got you.
Lucian carefully lifted Clara in his arms, placing her gently onto the white leather couch. Her cream dress was torn and marked with shoe polish, but her pale face relaxed slightly as Lucian sat beside her, holding her hand tightly.
Clara: Where did she get those papers, Lucian? She said her mother signed the entire inheritance over to her family bank account.
Lucian: Her mother tried to submit forged power-of-attorney documents to the bank at eight o'clock this morning.
Clara: Did the bank accept them?
Lucian: The bank manager called me immediately because your father set up a dual-signature lock on the family trust three years ago.
Clara: My father... he knew they would try to steal from us?
Lucian: He knew your stepmother was greedy, Clara. He made sure that no money could be moved out of the estate without my personal signature as his co-executor.
The heavy glass doors rattled loudly as Julianna marched back into the living room, dripping wet from head to toe. Her burgundy slit gown was soaked, sticking to her skin, and water pool-sloshed from her designer shoes onto the pristine white marble floor.
Julianna: Lucian! Are you completely insane?! You threw me into the swimming pool!
Lucian: You're lucky I didn't throw you off the balcony, Julianna.
Julianna: I am your fiancée! We are getting married at the cathedral next month!
Lucian: The engagement is officially over, Julianna. Hand over the house keys and step away from Clara.
Julianna: You can't break our engagement! Our families signed a multi-million-dollar merger agreement last spring!
Lucian: That corporate merger contract had a strict morality clause, Julianna. Physical assault on a family member voids every single clause in the agreement.
Julianna: She isn't my family! She's just a leech who came back to steal what my mother worked so hard for!
Clara: Your mother was married to my father for less than two years, Julianna! She didn't build this estate; my parents built it together before my mother passed away!
Julianna: My mother cared for your father while he was dying in his bed!
Lucian: Your mother paid off his private night nurse to keep his biological daughter out of the house while he was too weak to ask for her!
Julianna pulled her wet hair back from her face, her eyes flashing with pure venom as she glared at the two of them under the bright room lights.
Julianna: You have no proof of that! The nurse left the country two weeks ago!
Lucian: That nurse was stopped by federal customs officers at the airport this morning, Julianna. She had fifty thousand dollars in cash in her carry-on bag, handed to her by your mother's private driver.
Julianna: What... what are you talking about?!
Lucian: She made a full written statement to the police in exchange for a plea deal. She admitted everything your mother paid her to do.
Julianna's posture suddenly crumbled, her jaw dropping open as she staggered back against the edge of the mahogany side table.
Julianna: She... she talked to the police?
Lucian: She gave them the exact names of the illegal sedatives your mother was slipping into Arthur's evening tea every night.
Clara: My father wasn't sick, was he? You... you were poisoning him!
Julianna: I didn't give him anything! I don't know what my mother was doing in his bedroom!
Lucian: You knew everything, Julianna. And that security camera on the ceiling just recorded you bragging about the forged trust fund papers.
Julianna looked up at the sleek black dome camera again, her hands shaking as drops of pool water dripped off her fingertips onto the marble.
Julianna: Delete that footage, Lucian... Please, you know what this will do to my mother's reputation!
Lucian: I'm not deleting anything. The District Attorney is already watching the live cloud backup on his computer.