Daniel said smoothly.
“Samuel Hartfield was eighty-three years old when he wrote this will. He was isolated, ill, and clearly not thinking straight. You took advantage of his mental state to manipulate him into leaving you his estate.”
“I never even met with him.”
“Can you prove that?”
I stared at him.
“Can you prove I did?”
Daniel smiled. It was the smile of someone who thought he had already won.
“We have testimony from a former caretaker who says you visited Samuel multiple times in the months before his death. That you brought him gifts, spent hours alone with him, made promises.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Is it? Because we also have phone records showing repeated calls between your number and his residence.”
My heart was pounding.
“I never called him.”
“Then how do you explain the records?”
I couldn’t, because I didn’t know what records he was talking about, but I knew they were fabricated. They had to be. Diane stepped forward, her expression almost pitying.
“Sophia, this doesn’t have to be ugly. We’re willing to settle. You keep the mansion, twenty percent of the liquid assets. We split the rest. Everyone walks away happy.”
“I’m not giving you anything.”
“Then we’ll take everything.”
Marcus’s voice was low, threatening.
“We have lawyers. We have money. We have time. You think you can fight us? You’re broke, Sophia. Your ex-husband destroyed you. You have nothing except what Samuel left you, and we’re going to prove you don’t deserve it.”
“Get off my property.”
“This isn’t your property,”
Marcus said.
“Not yet.”
I slammed the door in their faces. Then I collapsed against it, my hands shaking, my breath coming in short gasps. They were going to take it. They were going to take everything. I called Clara.
“They were here,”
I said, my voice breaking.
“They’re filing a challenge. They have fake evidence, fake testimony. Clara, I don’t know how to fight this.”
“Yes, you do.”
Her voice was calm, steady.
“You know the truth, and I have something that will help you prove it.”
“What?”
“Come to my office tomorrow. There’s something Samuel left for you. Something I wasn’t allowed to give you until your family made their move.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll see.”
Clara’s office was in Midtown, in a sleek high-rise with marble floors and floor-to-ceiling windows. She met me in a private conference room, a large box sitting on the table between us.
“Samuel knew they’d come after you,”
Clara said.
“He knew they’d lie, cheat, fabricate evidence. So he prepared.”
She opened the box. Inside were files—dozens of them—photographs, legal documents, recordings.
“What is this?”
“Samuel’s insurance policy.”
Clara pulled out a folder and handed it to me.
“He spent the last ten years of his life documenting every interaction he had with your family. Every phone call, every threat, every lie.”
I opened the folder. Inside were transcripts of phone calls between Samuel and Gerald. In them, Gerald demanded money, threatened lawsuits, called Samuel a bastard who didn’t deserve the Hartfield name. There were emails from Marcus asking for loans he never repaid, making promises he never kept. There were letters from Diane, saccharine and manipulative, asking for help with her mortgage, her credit cards, her failed business ventures.
“They all came to him begging,”
Clara said,
“and he refused them every time. He kept every piece of evidence because he knew that one day they’d try to destroy whoever he left his fortune to.”
I felt something fierce and hot rising in my chest.
“Why didn’t he just cut them off completely?”
“He did. But he wanted you to have the ammunition to do the same. To expose them if you needed to.”
“Can we use this in court?”
“Better.”
Clara pulled out another folder.
“We can use it everywhere.”
