“These flowers are worth more than your entire family.”

"This is an orchestrated stunt!" Victoria shrieked, looking wildly around the table at the frozen board members. "Philip, tell them! Look at this! It’s a theatrical production! Clara disappeared eight years ago! Anyone could find a woman who looks like her and dress her in designer clothes! You cannot accept this without proof!"

"Proof?"

Eleanor smiled. It was the coldest smile the boardroom had ever witnessed.

She gestured toward the door once more. Dr. Robert Evans walked in, flanked by two armed state troopers and an assistant district attorney carrying a thick red legal folder.

"Victoria," Dr. Evans said, his voice flat. "This folder contains the certified forensic genetic sequence performed at Metro General this morning under strict chain of custody. Clara Vance is Eleanor’s biological daughter. Maya Vance is Eleanor’s biological granddaughter. The match is conclusive to 99.98%."

Philip Reynolds slowly lowered his pen, sliding his voting sheet away from Victoria as if it had caught fire. He took two steps back from the table, wanting nothing to do with the catastrophe unfolding before him.

"That... that doesn't prove anything about seven years ago!" Victoria cried, her voice cracking as sweat broke through her makeup. "So she came back! That doesn't mean I did anything wrong! I protected this family while she abandoned it!"

"Did you protect the family when you hired Thomas Vance to break into the hospital laboratory at dawn to destroy the samples with bleach?" Eleanor asked.

Victoria’s knees buckled slightly. "I... I don't know what you’re talking about—"

Ross Miller stepped forward, carrying a tablet connected to the boardroom’s massive eighty-inch presentation screen. He tapped the screen twice.

The presentation screen illuminated.

First came the video footage from the auxiliary security system of the Vance Estate, dated December 14th, seven years prior. The timestamp was clearly visible. On screen, Clara was kneeling on the front steps in the freezing snow, holding a bundle wrapped in a blanket, begging for help.

The audio played with crystal clarity through the surround-sound speakers:

*“Please, Victoria, just tell Mom Maya needs medicine. She’s burning up!”*

Then came Victoria’s cold, mocking laughter from the speakers:

*“Aunt Eleanor doesn't want you, Clara. She told me to tell you that you’re dead to her. Take your little mistake and crawl back into whatever gutter you came from. If you step on this driveway again, child services will take the girl and put you in a cage.”*

Several board members turned their heads away in disgust. Robert Vance slammed his fist onto the table. "You monster!"

"Wait!" Victoria screamed, tears of panic finally breaking through. "That’s doctored! AI can fabricate voices!"

"Then explain this, Miss Sterling," the Assistant District Attorney said, stepping forward and opening his briefcase. "These are the banking records from the Bank of the Cayman Islands. On December 17th, three days after that video, you transferred two hundred thousand dollars from the Vance Pediatric Cancer Fund into an account registered under your name. You used it to purchase a penthouse in Miami. When the audit came, you forged Clara’s signature to claim she had emptied the family safe."

The DA pulled out a pair of steel handcuffs.

"Victoria Sterling, you are under arrest for grand larceny, corporate embezzlement, wire fraud, conspiracy to tamper with evidence, and felony extortion."

Victoria looked around the room. Not a single person met her gaze. Philip Reynolds was staring at the floor. The board members looked at her with pure contempt.

"Aunt Eleanor..." Victoria fell to her knees on the boardroom carpet, crawling toward Eleanor’s feet, her manicured hands grasping at Eleanor’s trousers. "Please! I was young! I was jealous! Clara had everything, and I had nothing! I only wanted you to love me the way you loved her! Please don't send me to prison! I’ll give back the money! I’ll give back everything!"

Eleanor looked down at Victoria, the same way Victoria had looked down at Maya selling roses on the marble floor the night before.

Eleanor slowly took a step back, pulling her hem from Victoria’s grasp.

"You told my granddaughter that white roses were worth more than her entire family," Eleanor said, her voice dropping into an icy whisper that cut through the room. "You were wrong, Victoria. Those flowers were worth nothing. But you... you are worth less than the dirt they grew in."

Eleanor nodded to the state troopers.

"Get her out of my sight."

The troopers moved in, hauling Victoria to her feet. The clinking of handcuffs echoed through the silent boardroom. As they dragged her toward the door, Victoria sobbed hysterically, her designer heels dragging against the carpet, her makeup running down her face in black streaks.