Arthur lifted the top envelope, breaking the wax seal with his thumb while Deputy Lawson kept watch over Victoria.
Victoria took a trembling step toward the fireplace, wrapping her arms around her ribs as if trying to ward off the cold.
Victoria: Arthur, please. We can talk about this like family. We don't need the police involved.
Arthur: You forfeited the right to call Harold family the day you slipped crushed sedatives into his meals.
Victoria: I was only trying to keep him calm! He was rambling about changing the estate beneficiaries!
Sarah: He wasn't rambling, Victoria. He was trying to protect the people he actually loved.
Arthur unfolded the crisp parchment paper, adjusting his reading glasses as he read the opening clauses aloud.
Arthur: "I, Harold Davis, being of sound mind, hereby revoke all prior wills and codicils drafted under coercion."
Arthur: "To my stepdaughter, Victoria Davis, who spent seven years attempting to isolate me from my family..."
Victoria clenched her fists, her breath hitching in her throat as she stared at the legal parchment.
Arthur: "I leave the sum of exactly one dollar, conditional upon her vacating my property within twenty-four hours of my death."
Victoria: One dollar?! He built a multi-million-dollar empire with my mother's social connections!
Arthur: Your mother married Harold when he was already running three logistics terminals across the East Coast, Victoria.
Arthur: Her personal debts were completely paid off by Harold's private foundation before she passed away.
Victoria: That's a lie! She owned half of Davis Logistics!
Arthur: Read the prenuptial agreement attached to page seven. All assets remained strictly separate property.
Benson shook his head in quiet sorrow, his hands clasped behind his formal black vest.
Benson: Mr. Harold was the most generous gentleman in this county. He paid for my daughter's heart surgery without a second thought.
Benson: How could you treat a dying man with such heartless cruelty, Victoria?
Victoria: You stay out of this, Benson! You're just a servant who takes orders from whoever signs the checks!
Sarah: And who do you think signs the checks now, Victoria?
Victoria's eyes darted toward the second envelope in Arthur's hand, a sudden realization twisting across her face.
Victoria: Who did he leave the logistics shares to? There are no other surviving relatives!
Arthur: That is where you made your most catastrophic mistake, Victoria.
Arthur pulled out a birth certificate stamped by the New York State Bureau of Vital Statistics, dated twenty-six years ago.
Arthur: Harold had a daughter from his first marriage whom he believed had died in a tragic car crash in 1999.
Victoria froze, her gaze whipping violently toward Sarah, whose eyes were filled with quiet, unshed tears.
Victoria: No... no, that's impossible. The agency sent her! She was just a random registry nurse!
Arthur: The agency didn't pick Sarah at random, Victoria. I personally contacted the state board to assign her here.
Sarah: My mother survived that crash, Victoria. She raised me alone in upstate New York while Dad searched for us.
Sarah: When she passed away two months ago, she gave me the silver locket Dad gave her on their wedding day.
Sarah reached beneath her scrub collar, pulling out an antique silver oval locket engraved with the initials H & M.
Victoria gasped, stumbling back until her shoulders hit the marble mantelpiece behind her.
Victoria: You... you are Harold's biological child?
Arthur: Sarah is the sole surviving biological heir to the Davis family trust and all subsidiary logistics corporations.