Chapter2

Arthur froze in place for a good ten seconds, his face completely losing its composure.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" he roared in front of the entire hall of guests. "What do you mean I have a little brother? I'm twenty-two, and you're forty-two! You secretly had a bastard nineteen years ago and kept it from me?!"

"That's right, exactly that year," I said. I took a sip of my champagne, my tone light and breezy. "Right after your father passed away, I was juggling his funeral while fending off a boardroom coup, run off my feet. During those darkest days, someone kept me company and offered a few words of comfort. That was it, and then came him."

"You never told me!"

"What good would telling you do?" I smiled at him. "Revealing his father's identity would only make things more complicated. Why would I publicly claim him so early? Just to ask for trouble?"

"How can you say that about me!" Arthur pointed at me. "I was trying to salvage the family's reputation. This is called magnanimity. This is called seeing the big picture!"

"Magnanimity? Big picture?"

I looked at him coldly. "Arthur, when you were fifteen, you got obsessed with racing. You stole a confidential family bidding proposal and sold it to a competitor just to buy a custom Ferrari. When I found out, you fell on your knees and begged me. If your father had still been around, he would have thrown you straight into juvie without hesitation and stripped you of your inheritance. I spent twenty million dollars paying off that competitor to protect your flawless reputation. At the time, you told me you were just learning how adults play the game."

Arthur's face flushed a deep, liver red. "I was young and ignorant!"

"You've been ignorant for fourteen straight years," I said mildly. "I raised you, sent you to Wharton, and pushed you into Wall Street. And now, you use the money I gave you, file for conservatorship for the sake of an enemy's daughter, and try to lock me away in a mental asylum."

Arthur was completely speechless.

Maya chimed in right on cue, her tone pitiful. "Eleanor, ma'am, those things belong to the older generation. My mother is already gone. Why bring up the old mistakes of a fifteen-year-old child? Arthur has such a kind heart and is willing to accept me. Shouldn't you be proud of him?"

I turned to her with an exceedingly warm smile. "Your mother used the exact same tone when she called me back then. 'Eleanor, the dead are dead. Why can't you just let it go?' You and your mother really are cut from the same cloth when it comes to this kind of rhetoric."

Maya's face instantly went ashen. "How can you hurl such baseless accusations!"

She spun around and buried herself in Arthur's chest, shedding flawless tears. "Arthur, I told you I shouldn't have come. She hates me. She just wants to ruin me in front of everyone..."

"Mom! You're going too far!" Arthur wrapped his arms around her and glared at me fiercely. "Maya just lost her mother. Can't you show a little basic sympathy?"

Watching him shield Maya like a knight in shining armor, I suddenly felt that this farce had finally run its course.

Arthur stared at me, his Adam's apple bobbing hard. But a few seconds later, his Wall Street elite rationality gained the upper hand again.

"You think you can bluff me?" he scoffed, looking at me like I was genuinely insane. "You think you can keep your seat by getting some random actor to make a phone call? The conservatorship procedure has already been initiated. A judge won't care about your little soap opera."

I didn't bother giving him a second glance. Instead, I raised my hand and snapped my fingers toward the corner of the banquet hall.

John, my private wealth management advisor, stepped forward and respectfully handed me a tablet. The screen displayed the master control interface for the family trust.

"Arthur, you came into my home at eight, and I taught you one crucial lesson—a hunter should never expose their weapon to the prey before pulling the trigger."

I pressed my thumb against the scanner, triggering the most extreme veto power written into the trust documents.

Almost in the exact same second, the phone in Arthur's pocket started vibrating violently. He pulled it out, and the blood drained from his face instantly.

Black cards declined. Monthly credit limit frozen. Electronic access to the Manhattan penthouse completely revoked.

"Are you crazy?!" Arthur's voice cracked. "Dad left all of this to me!"

"I am the sole managing trustee, so of course I can strip it away." I raised my champagne glass, my tone entirely deadpan. "Until you can prove in court that I've lost my mind, you are, as of right now, a penniless beggar."

"Don't you even think about it!" Arthur lunged forward, pointing his finger right at my nose. "The court will give it all back to me tomorrow! I swear I'll let you rot to death in a Swiss madhouse!"

Bang—

Arthur's roaring threat was violently cut short by a heavy, muffled crash.

The massive double doors of the banquet hall were kicked open from the outside, and the security details stationed at the entrance were nowhere to be seen.

The entire hall of guests gasped, collectively sucking in a breath of cold air.