Vanessa grabbed the document, but I placed my hand firmly over it.
“Don’t.”
She snapped, “So what, you’re punishing us?”
“I’m protecting myself,” I said.
Richard’s voice turned cold.
“You think you can just shut your family out?”
“You can challenge it,” I said calmly. “But you’d be fighting Manhattan trust lawyers who design estates for billionaires.”
That sentence landed hard.
Margaret’s voice softened again.
“At least let Vanessa have one loft. She’s your sister.”
“You have six,” Vanessa added quickly. “Don’t be greedy.”
Greedy.
My husband had died hours earlier.
And they were bargaining over his property.
“My husband died today,” I said quietly. “And you spent the afternoon planning how to take what he left me. That’s not family.”
Richard stared at me. “So you’re cutting us off?”
“Yes.”
I slipped the document back into the envelope and pulled out my phone. I opened an email I had drafted in the car before coming inside—just in case.
Then I pressed send.
To Adrian’s attorney. My own attorney. And the property management company.
Richard’s eyes widened.
“What did you do?”
“I made sure no one else has access to anything.”
Vanessa’s voice cracked. “You’re making us look like criminals.”