Chapter 10 - THE NIGHT RICHARD FELL
The video began inside the blue room.
Richard stood beside Catherine’s portrait holding the trust amendment.
He looked weak but alert.
Vivian entered first.
Marcus followed.
Richard accused them of stealing from the company and drugging him.
Marcus laughed.
“You can’t even remember what you signed yesterday.”
“I remember enough.”
Richard said he had contacted Daniel and Isabella.
Vivian’s expression changed.
“Isabella does not care about you.”
“She will come.”
“She has not come in six years.”
“Because you kept us apart.”
Richard tried to move toward the door.
Marcus blocked him.
Vivian demanded the vault key.
Richard refused.
She took a glass from the table and threw it against the wall.
“You owe me this house.”
“I owe you nothing.”
Marcus seized Richard’s injured wrist.
The injury had begun earlier than Vivian claimed.
Richard cried out.
Vivian pushed the deed against his chest and ordered him to sign.
When he resisted, Marcus twisted his arm.
Richard stumbled and struck his head against the stone fireplace.
He collapsed.
Marcus panicked.
“You killed him.”
Vivian knelt and checked Richard’s pulse.
“He’s alive.”
“What do we do?”
Vivian looked toward the open door.
“Move him to the stairs. If he wakes, he fell.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
She answered without hesitation.
“Then the sedatives explain everything.”
Marcus dragged Richard across the carpet.
Vivian picked up the vault key but failed to notice Richard slipping it behind the wall panel.
The video ended as they carried him away.
Police arrested Marcus at the hospital.
Vivian was arrested at the mansion within the hour.
She refused to answer questions.
Her attorney argued the video lacked full context.
He claimed Richard attacked Marcus first.
The recording disproved that.
Vivian was charged with elder abuse, assault, unlawful imprisonment, financial exploitation, drugging and conspiracy.
Marcus faced the same charges along with theft, forgery and corporate fraud.
Richard watched the video once.
Then he asked for it to stop.
“I remember now,” he whispered.
Isabella took his hand carefully.
“You don’t have to watch again.”
“I let her convince me you would not come.”
“You called. I came.”
Richard began to cry.
But Vivian’s attorneys had one last strategy.
They claimed Catherine’s original trust was invalid because Isabella was not Richard’s biological daughter.
The accusation spread through the media before Isabella heard it privately.
Marcus had found an old letter questioning her paternity.
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If true, Isabella could lose her authority as successor trustee.
👉 Vivian could no longer deny the abuse, so she attacked the one thing Isabella had returned to protect: her place inside Richard’s family.
