I opened it to find my father and Vivian standing under the dim hallway light. Vivian looked unrecognizable; her perfect hair was disheveled, her makeup smudged, and she was clutching the legal notice like it was a weapon.

My father looked ten years older, his hands shaking.
“What did you do?” Vivian shrieked, her voice cracking with pure panic. “The hotel accounts are frozen! The bank says we don’t have authorization! They told us we have forty-eight hours to vacate the penthouse!”
I leaned against the doorframe, crossing my arms, looking at the woman who had humiliated me just hours prior.

“I didn’t do anything, Vivian,” I said calmly. “My mother did. You said it yourself tonight—the Meridian is for family only.

And since you made it very clear that I’m not family, I decided to take my mother’s property back. You have forty-eight hours to pack your things. And Dad? You can thank your wife for signing away your stipend.”
Vivian dropped to her knees right there in the hallway, sobbing, begging me to reconsider, while my father couldn’t even look me in the eye. For the first time in sixteen years, justice had been served, and my mother’s legacy was finally safe in my hands.