The voice wasn’t Franklin’s. It was Eleanor’s. Maris paused, her hand resting on the cool iron handle of the gate, but she didn’t turn around immediately. She felt the old, familiar tightening in her chest—the part of her that still wanted her mother to be a mother, the part that had watched Eleanor stand by in silent complicity for over two decades while Franklin crushed her spirit piece by piece.
She turned slowly. Eleanor was running across the grass, her apron strings fluttering behind her, her face streaked with tears. Behind her, Colton and Derek were frantically huddled over Franklin, who was clutching his chest, staring at the legal documents as if they were a death warrant.
“Maris, please,” Eleanor gasped, reaching out to touch her daughter’s sleeve, but stopping short when she saw the unyielding expression in Maris’s eyes. “You can’t do this to us. Your father… he has a bad heart. This will kill him. Where are we supposed to go? This is our home.”
“It was your home, Mom,” Maris said, her voice softening just a fraction, though the steel underneath remained intact. “But it was paid for with stolen money. It was built on a foundation of cruelty. You knew what he was doing. Maybe you didn’t know the exact financial details, but you knew how he treated me. You watched him call your only daughter a disgrace on Father’s Day, and you didn’t say a word. You twisted your dish towel and looked away. Just like you always did.”
“I was trying to keep the peace!” Eleanor cried, her voice cracking. “You don’t know what it’s like to live with a man like him, Maris. If I took your side, it only made things worse for everyone.”
“Then you should have left him,” Maris said flatly. “I did. And look how I turned out.”
“Please, Maris,” Eleanor begged, dropping her head. “Just give us time. Don’t throw us out on the street. Your brothers… they don’t know how to do anything else. They depend on that company.”
Maris looked past her mother’s shoulder. Colton was staring at her with a mixture of raw fury and desperation, while Derek was already on his phone, likely calling their corporate attorney only to find out that the firm had already been retained by Vanguard Capital.
A sudden, sharp wave of satisfaction washed over Maris, but it was quickly replaced by a profound, hollow clarity. This wasn’t just about revenge anymore. This was a clinical extraction. She had diagnosed the rot in her family years ago, and today was simply the surgery.
“I’ll tell you what, Mom,” Maris said, her voice clear enough to carry back to the table where her father sat slumped in his chair. “I’m a businesswoman. I believe in fair transactions. I won’t throw you on the street tomorrow. I will give you an alternative option. But it comes with a condition.”
