My mother let out a shrill, mocking laugh that echoed off the vaulted ceilings.
“Kick me out?” she scoffed, casually brushing a speck of invisible dust from her tailored blazer. “You wouldn’t dare, Thomas. You and this pathetic excuse for a wife have nothing without my trust fund. I own this house. I own *you*.”
I gently pulled Clara to her feet, ignoring the expensive silk of my shirt as she buried her frosting-covered face into my chest. Her trembling finally stopped as I wrapped a protective arm around her pregnant belly.
“You’re right, Mother,” I said, my voice eerily calm.
I reached into my inner jacket pocket, pulled out a tightly folded legal document, and tossed it onto the glass coffee table. It landed with a sharp slap right next to the ruined cake.
“The house *was* in your name.”
Her smug smile faltered. Her eyes darted to the paper.
“I’ve been auditing the family firm for the past six months,” I continued, watching the blood drain completely from her face. “The phantom accounts. The shell companies in the Caymans. I know you’ve been bleeding the estate dry since Dad fell ill. More importantly… I know exactly how he got sick.”
“You—you have no proof!” she stammered, her cruel composure instantly shattering into sheer panic.
“I have four hundred pages of it,” I whispered, leaning over the table so she could see the absolute zero in my eyes. “And the FBI has the hard drives. I handed them over an hour ago. That’s why I came home early.”
The deafening silence in the living room was broken only by the distant, rapidly approaching wail of police sirens.
My mother stumbled backward, collapsing rigidly onto the beige sofa, her breath catching in her throat.
I picked up a piece of the ruined blue fondant from the floor, the word *Daddy* still perfectly intact, and dropped it onto her lap.
“Happy birthday to me,” I said. “Enjoy the cake. It’s the last sweet thing you’ll taste for a very long time.”