Chapter 3 - The Family Vultures
The presence of my mother in the room felt like a physical blow. The last time I had seen her face, she was slamming our front door after my father called me a stain for refusing to give up my unborn child. Now, here she was, standing in a high-end senior facility, aligning herself with corporate vultures just to tear us down.
"Mother," I choked out, the word feeling foreign and bitter on my tongue. "What are you doing here?"
"Saving our family name from being dragged through the mud yet again," she replied smoothly, walking over to stand beside Marcus Thorne. She placed a manicured hand on the lawyer's shoulder. "Marcus is an old family friend. When he mentioned that a vagrant child had manipulated the Vance estate, I immediately recognized the signature desperation of my disgraced daughter."
Dr. Hayes frowned, standing up to interject. "Mrs. Sterling, this is a private matter concerning St. Jude and the Vance family. You have no standing here."
"I have every standing," my mother snapped, her eyes narrowing. "Arthur Vance was my late husband's primary business associate. Our families were intertwined for decades before Rowan decided to throw her life away in the gutter. This entire stunt—sending a child in with poisoned or tampered goods to elicit an emotional response—is calculated fraud."
Lila couldn't take it anymore. The tears she had been holding back finally broke free, and she stood up from her chair, her small frame shaking.
"We didn't commit fraud!" Lila cried out, her voice echoing off the high ceilings. "We baked forty pies! We stayed up all night peeling apples! We didn't even know Mr. Vance had money! He just... he just looked lonely, like he needed someone to care!"
The raw honesty in my daughter's voice cut through the corporate toxicity of the room, but my mother only rolled her eyes with chilling indifference.
"Save the dramatics, child. You learned from a master of manipulation," my mother said coldly, looking directly at me. "Rowan has been playing the victim since she was eighteen. Now she’s training the next generation to gold-dig."
Something inside me snapped. The years of double shifts, the lonely nights, the aching feet, the constant worry over rent, and worst of all, the insult hurled at my innocent daughter—it all converged into a single, blinding wave of fury.
I stepped forward, putting myself directly between my mother and Lila.
"Get out," I whispered.
My mother blinked, taken aback. "Excuse me?"
"I said, get out," I shouted, my voice reverberating through the entire wing. "You cut me off when I was eighteen. You called my child a stain before she even drew her first breath. You didn't send soup when she had a fever, you didn't help pay for a single grocery bill, and you sure as hell didn't care when we were drowning. You left us with nothing, and we survived without you. We built a life with love, not polished silver. So take your lawyer, take your cruelty, and get out of our sight!"
For a second, my mother actually stepped back, stunned by the sheer force of my defiance. Marcus Thorne cleared his throat nervously, adjusting his tie.
"Mrs. Sterling, perhaps we should handle this outside—"
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"We are handling this in court," my mother hissed, recovering her composure and glaring at me with pure venom. "You won't see a single dime of Arthur’s estate, Rowan. We will sue you into oblivion."
As they stormed out of the room, Officer Miller sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, that complicates things. If prominent family members are alleging foul play and contesting the will, this isn't going to blow over quietly. A probate judge is going to have to settle this."
