My parents said, “We are done raising your mistake. Get out and never come back,” then they kicked me and my 5-year-old into the middle of a snowstorm. I didn’t beg. I didn’t argue. Three hours later, there was a knock at their door. They opened it — and started screaming ...

After Julian Vance and Savannah left, the brownstone fell into a heavy, tense silence.

I sat at the dining room table, staring at the legal notice Julian had left behind. It was an official third-party claim against my grant funds, filed through a corrupt magistrate’s office in the lower district—the very district Julian’s brother, Councilman Vance, oversaw.

"He's bluffing about the injunction," Dr. Carr said, pacing the room. "The university board would never honor a magistrate's lien from the lower district on a academic grant."

"He's not bluffing about delay," Marcus countered, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. "Julian Vance doesn't need to win the lawsuit, Simona. He just needs to tie Clara's funds up in probate court long enough for the spring semester registration deadline to pass in two weeks. If she misses the deadline, her grant deferral expires permanently."

I felt a cold sensation in the pit of my stomach.

It was the same strategy my parents had used for six years: use time, bureaucracy, and fear to wear me down until I surrendered.

"No," I said quietly.

Marcus and Dr. Carr both turned to look at me.

"No?" Dr. Carr repeated.

I stood up from the table, picking up the legal notice. "We're not going to sit here and play defense. Julian Vance wants ninety thousand dollars because my father owes him money. But why did my father owe him money in the first place?"

Marcus narrowed his eyes, interested. "Walker Holdings was losing commercial leases."

"Why were they losing leases?" I asked, memory after memory flashing through my head—conversations I had overheard while scrubbing my father's office floor on weekend cleaning shifts he forced me to do. "My father kept complaining that a competitor was buying up all his properties in the West District. He said someone was leaking his client bids before he could submit them."

Marcus sat down beside me, pulling up his tablet. "Leaking bids? That's corporate espionage."

"My father's secretary was Savannah’s best friend from high school," I continued, the dots connecting faster than I could speak them. "Savannah was getting thousands of dollars in cash allowances from my father every month. Where did Savannah get the money for her designer bags before my parents started stealing my trust?"

Dr. Carr gasps softly. "Savannah was selling your father's business bids."

"To who?" Marcus asked, his fingers flying across his screen as he accessed the public land registry database.

A moment later, a list of commercial property buyers popped up on the tablet screen.

The primary buyer who had snatched up four of my father's lost properties over the last eighteen months was a holding company called Vance Development LLC.

Julian Vance hadn't just loaned my father money to keep his firm afloat. Julian Vance had actively sabotaged my father’s business from the inside using Savannah, forced my father into debt, and then used that debt to extort my family's remaining assets—including my grant.

"They didn't just steal my money," I said, a dark, dangerous laugh escaping my throat. "They set up a trap to devour my entire family, and my father was too stupid and arrogant to see it."

Marcus looked at me, a slow, admiring smile spreading across his face. "Clara Walker... you don't need a biomedical degree. You need a badge."