Chapter 4 - The Threat on the Stairs

"You aren't leaving this house with anything that belongs to the Vance family!" Evelyn spat, raising the decanter as Emma descended.

Emma didn't slow her pace. She walked down the carpeted steps with the cold precision of an executioner. "None of this belongs to you, Evelyn. Not the house, not the investments, and certainly not Julian's tech startup."

"My son built that company with his bare hands!" Evelyn snarled, blocking the base of the staircase. "You were just a charity case he brought home to look progressive!"

"Your son doesn't know the difference between a backend API and a spreadsheet macro," Emma retorted, stopping on the third step from the bottom, looking down at Evelyn. "I wrote the proprietary routing algorithms for Vance Logistics. Every single line of code that secured his twenty-million-dollar Series A valuation has my digital signature stamped into the architecture."

Evelyn wavered, glancing past Emma toward Julian, who was sprinting down the stairs behind her. "Julian! Is she telling the truth?"

Julian's silence was deafening.

"She's bluffing, Mom! She signed the intellectual property release when we got married!" Julian yelled, though his voice shook with sudden dread.

"I signed a release for the beta version," Emma said, flashing a razor-sharp smile that made Evelyn take an instinctive step back. "The commercial license remained under my private holding company, Aegis Systems. The annual renewal fee is due tonight at midnight. Guess who isn't signing the extension?"

Julian grabbed the banister, looking like he was about to vomit. "Emma... wait. Let's talk about this."

"The time for talking ended when you let your mother shove my face into broken glass and oil," Emma said.

She pushed past Evelyn with enough force to send the older woman stumbling onto the velvet settee. Emma opened the massive front double doors and stepped out into the cool evening air.

A sleek black sedan was already idling at the curb. The driver stepped out, opened the rear door, and nodded respectfully.

"Good evening, Ms. Vance. Everything is prepared."

May you like

The housekeeper was supposed to be invisible. Instead, Sophia Hale becam...

The housekeeper was supposed to be invisible. Instead, Sophia Hale became the only person who could expose a massive conspiracy in...

My Husband Hit Me at Dinner—Then His Sister-in-Law Whispered, “Tell the...

"“You and Adrian can rent somewhere smaller,” he said. “A young married couple does not need two bedrooms.” Several relatives nodd...

A federal judge thought his power could cover up a murder. He didn't exp...

"A federal judge thought his power could cover up a murder. He didn't expect her to survive the 20-foot fall. ⚖️🩸The pristine whi...

Emma got in. As the car pulled away, she looked through the tinted window. Julian was standing on the porch in his wine-stained suit, frantically dialing his phone.

Emma pulled out her secondary laptop, flipped it open, and typed a single command line: EXECUTE LICENSE_TERMINATION --FORCE.