Chapter 7 - Whispers in the LedgerWith the DNA test confirming Lily's lineage, Arthur summoned his chief legal counsel, Marcus Vance, to amend the Montgomery Family Trust. Eighty percent of the voting shares and the entirety of the primary estate were slated to transfer to a trust managed for Lily until her twenty-first birthday, effectively stripping Julian of his expected inheritance.
Desperate to find leverage, Julian began secretly digging into the circumstances surrounding Clara’s death. He hired an underground private investigator, Vance Miller, to track down the abandoned tenement where Clara had spent her final days.
"Find me something," Julian demanded over a secure line in his dark office. "A marriage certificate to a criminal, a fake identity, drug abuse—anything that can prove Clara was unfit or legally invalidated her claim to the estate."
Two days later, Miller delivered a leather folder to Julian’s car in a secluded parking garage.
Julian flipped through the crime scene photos and coroner reports from Clara’s death. But as his eyes scanned the medical examiner's detailed notes, his heart stopped.
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Clara hadn't died of pneumonia or severe exposure, as the public records claimed. The toxicology report showed trace amounts of a rare, synthetic neuromuscular toxin—a compound expensive enough that no street beggar or homeless person could ever acquire it.
Clara hadn't just died in poverty. She had been systematically poisoned over the course of several months.
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