“Rachel, it’s so good to finally reach you.” The voice was unfamiliar. Syrupy sweet. “I’m Jennifer Cole from Seattle Scene Magazine. I’d love to chat about your relationship with Dorothy.”
“No comment,” I said, moving to hang up.
“Wait, I just have a few questions about the allegations. What allegations? About your business? There are questions about where you got your startup capital. Some people are suggesting Dorothy funded it years ago. That you’ve been planning this takeover for a long time.”
My blood ran cold. “That’s not true. I built my business with my own money.”
“Can you prove that? Do you have documentation?”
I hung up, my hands shaking.
“They’re trying to create a narrative,” Walter said grimly. “That you’ve been grooming Dorothy for years. That everything you’ve accomplished was really her money.”
“But it wasn’t! I have loan documents, business records.”
“We know,” Grandma Dorothy soothed. “And we’ll prove it. But Rachel, you need to prepare yourself. This is going to get worse before it gets better.”
She was right. By evening, social media was flooded with theories. Anonymous accounts—probably my family—were spreading rumors: that I’d failed out of community college (I’d graduated with honors), that my business was failing (it was thriving), that I’d had multiple affairs with wealthy older men (I’d barely dated in years). The cruelest rumor was that I’d somehow caused my birth parents’ death to access their trust fund. I was five when they died, but facts didn’t matter to internet trolls.
I closed my laptop, feeling sick.
“Miss Rachel,” Thomas appeared at the library door. “There are reporters at the gate. Quite a few of them.”
I walked to the window overlooking the front of the estate. News vans lined the street. Cameras pointed at the house. My private life was now public spectacle.
“This is what they want,” I said quietly. “They want me to crack, to do something that makes me look bad.”
“Then don’t give them the satisfaction,” Grandma Dorothy said. She looked exhausted, but her eyes were still fierce. “We fight this the right way: with truth, with evidence, with dignity.”
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept replaying moments from my childhood: Patricia telling me I was lucky they’d taken me in. Victoria laughing when I didn’t get invited to her birthday party. Kenneth pushing me into the pool at a family gathering while everyone laughed. Every moment of exclusion, every casual cruelty, all building to this moment.
Around 2 AM, my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number. You’re going to regret this. We’ll destroy you. – V. Victoria, threatening me from a burner phone. I screenshot it and sent it to Walter. Evidence. Grandma Dorothy had taught me well.
The next morning brought a new development. Kenneth showed up at the estate, somehow talking his way past security. I found him in the foyer, arguing with Thomas. “I need to see Rachel,” he was saying. “Please, it’s important.”
“It’s okay, Thomas,” I said, though my heart was racing. “I’ll talk to him.”
Kenneth looked terrible: unshaven, his clothes wrinkled, dark circles under his eyes. Nothing like the polished banker I’d grown up with. “Rachel, please,” he said. “We need to fix this. The family is falling apart.”
“The family fell apart a long time ago,” I said. “You’re just noticing now because money’s involved.”
“That’s not fair! I know we weren’t always… I know we could have been better to you, but this”—he gestured around the estate—”cutting us out completely. That’s too far.”
“Too far?” My voice rose despite my attempt to stay calm. “Kenneth, you pushed me into a pool when I was twelve, and I nearly drowned because I didn’t know how to swim. Nobody taught me because swimming lessons were for real family. Victoria told everyone at school I was adopted because my real parents didn’t want me. Mom forgot my birthday three years in a row. Dad told me I should be grateful for scraps, and you all spent $750,000 that was meant for me while I worked three jobs to pay for community college.”
Kenneth’s face went white. “I didn’t know about that money. I swear.”
“You didn’t know because you never asked. None of you ever asked about me, about my life, about whether I was okay.” The words poured out. Years of pain finally finding voice. “You want to fix the family? There’s nothing to fix. It was broken from the start.”
“Rachel, please—”
“Get out.” My voice was steady now. Cold. “Get out of this house and don’t come back.”
“You’re making a mistake,” Kenneth said, but there was no conviction in it. “When Grandma’s gone, you’ll have no one.”
“I already had no one,” I said. “At least now I’ll have resources to build an actual life.”
Thomas escorted Kenneth out. Through the window, I watched my brother walk to his car, shoulders slumped. For a moment, just a moment, I felt a pang of something. Not quite guilt, but a sad acknowledgment of what could have been if they’d chosen differently.
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