Chapter 6 - THE COST OF LEARNING THAT BOTH SISTERS HAD BEEN MANAGED
Victoria met Sophia for the first time two weeks after dinner.
Neutral conference room.
Attorneys nearby.
No Marcus.
Sophia looked exhausted.
She had stopped wearing the carefully styled makeup that made every Bennett family argument feel like a board presentation.
Victoria sat across from her.
“Did you know Marcus wanted money from the Lakeview sale?”
Sophia looked confused.
“No.”
“Then why did West Alder pay him?”
“For helping with creditors.”
“Your payment description says Lakeview strategy.”
Sophia’s face changed.
“He told me to label it that way.”
“Why?”
“He said if the trust sale happened, the work would be connected.”
Victoria almost laughed.
“You paid my husband to help you pressure me over our mother’s trust.”
Sophia looked down.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“About six months.”
“Did you ever wonder why he cared so much?”
“He said you were controlling me.”
“That is not an answer.”
Sophia looked up.
“I thought he agreed with me.”
“Marcus agrees with whoever gives him leverage.”
Sophia flinched.
Victoria immediately hated how satisfying that felt.
She forced herself to slow down.
“Did he ever tell you he wanted a direct financial interest in Lakeview?”
“No.”
“Did he ask you to promise him anything from the sale?”
Sophia shook her head.
That was important.
Maybe Marcus’s motive was not direct payment.
Then Sophia asked:
“Did you really tell him you were going to petition to keep me from ever becoming trustee?”
“No.”
Sophia stared.
“Never?”
“Never.”
“He showed me an email.”
Victoria felt cold.
“What email?”
Sophia’s attorney produced a printed copy.
It appeared to be from Victoria to Rachel.
The wording said:
**If Sophia keeps pushing the Lakeview sale, we may need to address whether her financial instability disqualifies her from future trust authority.**
Victoria read it.
“I didn’t write this.”
Sophia looked at her.
“The address is yours.”
“That doesn’t mean I wrote it.”
Rachel examined the header.
The email existed in Sophia’s records as a forwarded image, not an original message.
Marcus had sent it to her.
No source metadata.
No original.
A picture of an email.
Enough to persuade someone already frightened.
Not enough to prove authenticity.
Sophia’s shoulders dropped.
“He told me you were preparing to cut me out.”
Victoria felt anger.
Then something worse.
Recognition.
“How many times did he show you things instead of telling you to speak to me directly?”
Sophia started crying.
That was the answer.
The relationship shifted.
Not toward forgiveness.
Toward a more dangerous truth.
Marcus had spent years making both sisters slightly less likely to speak directly.
But Victoria could not let that truth erase Sophia’s choices.
“You still knew about dinner.”
“I know.”
“You still came.”
“I know.”
“You knew he was putting something in my food.”
Sophia looked down.
“Yes.”
Victoria’s voice broke.
“Then whatever he lied about, you crossed your own line.”
Sophia began crying harder.
“I know.”
Victoria did not hug her.
She did not leave either.
That was the cost of knowing.
Marcus had manipulated Sophia.
Sophia had still betrayed Victoria.
Both things could exist.
Then Sophia revealed something that made Marcus’s motive stranger.
“He was scared of the Lakeview valuation.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
“That if the independent number came in too high, everything fell apart.”
Victoria frowned.
A higher valuation should help if they wanted to sell.
Unless Marcus did not want the best price.
May you like
Unless he needed a specific buyer.
The trust sale was beginning to look less like an argument about whether to sell.
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