Chapter 4 - The Reading and the Trap
The court stenographer’s mechanical keys tapped with a quiet, rhythmic clatter that sounded like dry rain against autumn leaves.
The 4K camera rig stood immovable on its carbon-fiber legs, its red recording indicator glowing solid and unblinking in the white glare of the LED panel. Beside the desk, Harold Vance stood with his arms crossed over his three-piece suit, watching Victoria and Lance with the relaxed, predatory patience of a tiger lounging outside a butcher shop.
Arthur Blackwood adjusted his horn-rimmed spectacles. His breathing was shallow, his chest hitching every few sentences, but the authority in his voice was absolute.
For forty-five minutes, Father read every line, every schedule, and every asset distribution clause of the thirty-page instrument.
The terms were identical to the ones I had memorized during my first life:
The Blackwood Shipping fleet, the deep-water Newark container terminals, and seventy percent of the voting common stock were transferred irrevocably to me, Julian Blackwood.
The real estate holdings, the agricultural acreage in Dutchess County, and a fifty-million-dollar medical research endowment were placed under the sole trusteeship of Clara Blackwood.
The Manhattan brownstone, a twenty-million-dollar cash annuity, and the Blackwood foundation’s charitable board seats were assigned to Victoria Blackwood, with a mandatory non-intervention clause barring her or her heirs from ever exercising voting control over the maritime operations.
And to Lance? A four-million-dollar liquid cash disbursement, conditional upon his complete resignation from every board seat and corporate committee within Blackwood Logistics within thirty days of probate.
When Father read Lance’s clause, my stepbrother let out a choked, ragged sound from the corner of the room, his hand tightening around his crystal glass so violently I thought the glass would shatter in his palm.
Four million dollars was an enormous fortune to an ordinary man. But to Lance—who had secretly pledged twenty-five million dollars in phantom equity to his private equity backers in Manhattan to cover his disastrous leveraged positions in offshore cryptocurrency syndicates—four million dollars was a death sentence. It was bankruptcy and federal prison.
Father reached the final page.
He looked directly into the camera lens, his rheumy blue eyes clear, unclouded, and filled with a terrifying, crystalline lucidity.
"I declare this instrument to be my Last Will and Testament," Father read, his voice ringing steady through the silent room. "I declare that I am of sound mind, acting entirely of my own free will, under no duress, menace, fraud, or undue influence from any living soul. Any subsequent instrument, codicil, or amendment executed without the physical countersignature of my designated corporate fiduciary, Julian Blackwood, and my personal physician, Dr. Robert Evans, shall be deemed legally fraudulent, void ab initio, and treated as an act of criminal forgery."
Victoria’s breath caught in her throat with a sharp, audible gasp.
She turned her head slowly, staring at Father as if he had just driven a wooden stake through her chest.
That clause wasn't in the original draft.
In my first life, Father had used standard boilerplate language regarding revocations. But yesterday morning, before dawn, I had personally driven to Harold Vance’s private brownstone in Brooklyn, presenting him with evidence of Richard Sterling’s prior probate manipulations in two other high-profile estate cases. Vance had drafted that specific, unassailable lock-box rider and hand-delivered it to Father’s desk via Dr. Evans at 2:00 p.m. today.
The three-day switch had just been legally incinerated before the match was even struck.
Father picked up his heavy gold fountain pen, signed his name across the execution line with a firm, unbroken hand, and pressed his signet ring into a fresh pool of scarlet sealing wax.
"Harold," Father said, handing the document to the attorney. "Witness it."
Harold Vance signed. The stenographer signed. Dr. Robert Evans signed, stepping forward to state his medical evaluation for the record:
"I am Dr. Robert Evans, attending physician. I have examined Arthur Blackwood at 3:45 p.m. this afternoon. His cognitive faculties, executive decision-making capabilities, and mental orientation are completely intact, scoring thirty out of thirty on the Mini-Mental State Examination. He is fully competent."
"Recording concluded at 5:12 p.m.," the videographer announced, cutting the lights.
The library returned to the warm, amber glow of the fireplace.
Harold Vance took the signed, certified will, slid it into a heavy, tamper-evident steel lockbox from his briefcase, and spun the mechanical combination dials with three sharp, metallic clicks.
"This master original goes directly to the secure underground vault of the Manhattan Surrogate's Court tomorrow morning, Arthur," Vance said, snapping his briefcase shut. "Certified digital duplicates are currently encrypting and synchronizing across the state bar's digital repository. Nobody can touch this. Not with a team of fifty litigators."
He picked up his coat, bowed politely to Clara and me, completely ignored Victoria and Lance, and walked out of the library, flanked by his transcription team.
The heavy pocket doors slid shut behind them.
Father sat back in his leather chair, closing his eyes, his breathing heavy and exhausted.
Victoria slowly rose from her chair. The sweet, weeping widow was gone. Her aristocratic face was a mask of cold, venomous, calculating malice. She didn't look at Father. She looked at me, her lips drawn back over her teeth in a silent, feral snarl.
"You think you won, Julian?" Victoria whispered, her voice dropping into an octave of pure, unadulterated poison that made Clara take half a step backward. "You think a piece of paper and a video camera protect you from what's coming?"
May you like
I picked up my untouched glass of single malt, took a slow, deliberate sip, and smiled.
"The paper doesn't protect me, Victoria," I said, looking her dead in the eye. "The paper protects the family. You, on the other hand... you have about seventy-two hours to figure out where you’re going to live."
