“Yes.”
“And you used her death.”
Arthur began crying again.
“It wasn’t supposed to be Chloe.”
That sentence never left me.
Not because he meant he wanted someone else dead.
He meant Chloe’s death had not been part of the plan.
It was an inconvenience that arrived during a conspiracy already underway.
He had simply adapted.
I bent toward him.
“My father knew what you were.”
Arthur looked up.
“What?”
“He built a clause into the trust for exactly this.”
His expression changed.
I almost whispered the next words.
“Attempting to seize control through manufactured incapacity while committing fiduciary fraud triggers automatic forfeiture of every economic interest you hold through the Sterling family structure.”
Arthur stared at me.
“No.”
“Your deferred equity.”
“No.”
“Your trust participation.”
“Claire.”
“Your profit-sharing rights.”
He stood.
“You can’t.”
“They’re gone.”
“You can’t take eighty million dollars from me.”
I looked at him.
“You tried to take my father’s company while using our daughter’s death as evidence that I was unstable.”
