Chapter 8 - The Ultimatum
The deposition video was immediately leaked to the press, likely by an anonymous source inside the courthouse.
The public outrage escalated from a bonfire into a massive, uncontrollable wildfire.
The Vance company stock plummeted by forty percent in a single week.
Shareholders were demanding that Julian and his father step down immediately to save the brand.
That evening, I received a knock on my door.
I looked through the peephole and was shocked to see Richard Vance himself standing alone in the hallway.
He looked desperate, completely stripped of his usual billionaire arrogance.
I opened the door but kept the chain locked, staring at him coldly.
“Clara, please, let me speak to you,” Richard begged, his voice raspy.
“Speak,” I commanded, refusing to invite him inside my safe space.
“Julian is facing ten years in prison for the fraud and the assault,” Richard said, his hands shaking.
“I will give Emma her entire trust fund today, plus a fifty million dollar settlement, if you just ask the DA for leniency on the criminal charges.”
He was begging for his son's freedom.
I looked at this powerful man, realizing he finally understood that he had lost everything.
“You raised a monster, Richard,” I said softly, but firmly.
“You taught him that money makes you immune to consequences, and that is why he thought he could abuse a child.”
I unlatched the chain and fully opened the door, looking him dead in the eye.
“Emma doesn't need a settlement, she will take what is legally hers through the courts,” I declared.
“And your son is going to sit in a concrete cell and think about the little girl he tried to destroy.”
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I slammed the door in his face, locking it with a satisfying click.
I walked back into the bedroom where Emma was coloring a picture, perfectly safe and blissfully unaware of the war I had just won for her.
