Chapter 17 - The Black Envelope
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"What is that?" I whispered, my voice trembling as the pain in my knees momentarily took a backseat to the chilling tension in the room.
Arthur turned his gaze down to me. The polite smile remained plastered on his face, but his eyes were calculating, studying me like a piece of valuable property.
"Emily, my dear," the attorney said smoothly, his tone sickeningly patronizing. "You’ve spent the last two hours believing your husband was a greedy monster trying to steal your legitimate companies."
He stepped closer, ignoring the guns pointed at his back, and gently placed the heavy black envelope onto the coffee table right in front of me. It was sealed with dark crimson wax, stamped with a crest I didn't recognize—two crossed scythes over a crown.
"But you have it all wrong," Arthur continued, gesturing to Brandon, who was still cowering on the floor, weeping over his shattered wrist. "Your husband is a monster, yes. But he wasn't trying to steal your inheritance. He was trying to stop you from inheriting it."
The words hung in the cold air, making absolutely no sense to me. Stop me? Brandon had brought a hammer to my knees to force me to sign papers.
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"Don't listen to him, Emily," Dad barked, stepping between me and the table. He looked at his men. "Get him out of here. Put a bullet in his head and burn the body."
"If I die, the council gets the files, Abraham," Arthur said casually, not moving an inch as the enforcers closed in. "You know the rules. She's of age. She's married. The transition must occur, or the families will burn this city to ash."
