They made her serve dinner like hired help while receiving lavish gifts, completely oblivious that her empty purse held the receipts for every single one.

Margaret lunged forward, her manicured hands clawing at the papers on the table, trying to gather them, trying to crush them into her fists as if destroying the ink could rewrite the past seven years.

"Stop it!" she shrieked, her aristocratic facade completely shattering into hysterical rage. "Get this garbage out of my house! Get it out! She did this on purpose! She collected these to blackmail us! She’s an ungrateful, conniving little snake!"

"She didn't keep them to blackmail you," Roman said, his voice dropping to a deathly, freezing calm that cut straight through his mother's shrieks. "She kept them for tax audits. Because she was terrified that when the IRS finally realized the Vale estate was operating on phantom money, she would be sent to prison for your tax fraud."

Margaret stopped clawing at the papers. Her body went entirely limp, her hands hovering above the wooden table.

"What did you say?" she whispered.

"I called Thomas Vance at three this morning," Roman stated, crossing his arms over his chest. "And Thomas connected me with Arthur Pendelton. Pendelton spent the last three hours running a preliminary title search on this property."

Roman picked up the leather estate binder and flipped it open to a single sheet of paper he had inserted at the front.

"You took out a secondary mortgage on the manor four years ago, Mother. You forged Dad's old signature on the surviving spouse affidavit, and when the payments defaulted two months ago, you took out a private loan from a hard-money lender in Delaware." Roman looked up, his eyes boring into hers. "And you listed Evelyn’s consulting business as the corporate guarantor without her knowledge."

Martin went entirely white. "Mother... you did what?"

"She gambled Evelyn's entire future to keep this house," Roman said. "Because Margaret Vale couldn't bear the thought of moving into a two-bedroom condominium in the valley. She would rather drive an innocent woman into financial ruin and emotional suicide than admit she was broke."

Celeste was sobbing on the floor now, pulling the diamond bracelet off her wrist with such violence that she snapped the safety clasp, throwing the sparkling band onto the pile of receipts. "Take it! Take it back! I want a divorce, Martin. I'm calling my father right now."

"Celeste, wait!" Martin pleaded, chasing after her as she scrambled to her feet and ran up the stairs toward the guest bedroom to pack her bags. "Celeste, please! We can fix this! Mother has assets in France!"

"There are no assets in France, Martin!" Roman shouted up the stairs after him. "There is nothing! There is only debt, lies, and the sweat of the woman you treated like a scullery maid!"

Martin stopped on the landing, looking down at his brother, then at his mother, the reality of his ruined life crashing down upon his shoulders. He slumped against the banister, burying his face in his hands, weeping like a helpless child.

Margaret stood alone by the table. The silence returned, heavy and putrid.

"You have destroyed this family, Roman," Margaret whispered, her eyes dark with pure, venomous hatred. "Your father would spit on your face."

"My father died a coward who left his debts to his children," Roman replied coldly. "And you are a parasite who fed on the only person who ever showed this family genuine mercy."

Roman picked up the battered brown purse, carefully sweeping the remaining receipts back inside, leaving only the pawn slip and the diamond bracelet on the table.

"Pack your bags, Mother," Roman said.

Margaret looked at him, startled. "What did you say?"

"Pendelton is filing an emergency injunction at nine o'clock. The guarantor fraud invalidates the secondary lien, but the primary lender is foreclosing. You have forty-eight hours to vacate the premises before the marshals change the locks."

"This is my home!" Margaret shrieked. "I am Margaret Vale! I was born to this!"