“I did everything for you, Julian!” Beatrice whimpered.

He looked at her with tears in his eyes. “No, Mom. You did everything for yourself, using my future as your excuse.”

Marcus displayed internal messages in which Beatrice called Valerie “the original heiress” and stressed the need to “permanently close any possibility of a future trust claim.”

“Was Valerie the sole legal heir to the family fortune?” a reporter shouted.

Julian answered clearly. “Yes. Under my late stepfather’s original trust, Valerie was the sole beneficiary upon turning twenty-one.”

The final piece flashed on the screen: a document signed years earlier by Elena Sterling, Valerie’s late mother. The terms were absolute — Elena’s private fortune passed exclusively to Valerie on her twenty-first birthday, and no estate administrator, including Alexander or a second spouse, could alter or redistribute those shares without independent, forensic proof of death.