Kandy scrambled backward on the floor, her expensive dress catching on a stray nail in the floorboards. She pressed her back against the side of the bed, one hand desperately covering her bruised, swollen cheek.
Her chest heaved. The terror in her eyes morphed into the cornered desperation of a rabid animal.
"I'm calling the police," Kandy hissed, her voice trembling but laced with venom. "I'm going to have you arrested for assault. The military medical center will run a background check. They'll never let a violent felon near Gaylord Bradford!"
Janet didn't even blink at the threat. She turned her back on Kandy, walking calmly toward the battered oak desk in the corner of the room. She pulled open the bottom drawer.
Her fingers brushed past old notebooks until they found the heavy, textured weight of a legal document.
Janet pulled it out. She walked back to Kandy and tossed the thick parchment onto the floor. It landed with a heavy thud right next to Kandy's scuffed Chanel heels.
Kandy flinched. Her eyes dropped to the document. The bold, crimson wax seal of the Perkins Family Trust Fund glared back at her.
"Section four, paragraph two," Janet recited. Her voice was a monotonous, mechanical drone that offered no room for negotiation. "The Morals Clause. Any collateral family member receiving living stipends who engages in behavior detrimental to the primary heir's reputation will be immediately severed from the trust."
Kandy's face went ashen. The blood completely drained from her lips. She realized in that agonizing second that Janet didn't just hold the physical high ground; she held the financial guillotine over Kandy's entire immediate family.
"If you breathe a single word of this to the police," Janet warned, her eyes narrowing into dark slits, "I will initiate the eviction protocol. Your parents will be out on the street before sunset."
Kandy's jaw trembled. "How... how did you get the executive copy? The elders-"
"I am the future Mrs. Bradford," Janet interrupted, lifting her chin. The sheer arrogance of the title felt foreign on her tongue, but she wielded it like a broadsword. "This document is legally binding. If you breathe a single word of this to the police, I will initiate the eviction protocol myself. The Morals Clause is absolute. You and your parents will be out on the street before sunset. You want to test the weight of the Bradford name, even a ruined one? Be my guest."
The absolute dominance in Janet's voice snapped something inside Kandy's fragile psyche.
"Bradford is a sinking ship!" Kandy shrieked, her voice echoing off the ceiling. "They're going to be liquidated in six months! The whole empire is going bankrupt!"
Janet's eyes snapped onto Kandy. The air in the room seemed to vacuum out.
Janet took a slow, deliberate step forward. "And how exactly do you know the precise timeline of a private corporate liquidation, Kandy? You don't even read the Wall Street Journal."
Kandy slapped both hands over her mouth. Her eyes widened in sheer horror. She had just played her biggest card in a moment of blind panic.
Janet loomed over her, her shadow swallowing Kandy whole. "Who told you?"
"I... I heard it!" Kandy stuttered, pressing herself harder against the bedframe. "At Jax's yacht party! The investment bankers were talking about the short-selling data!"
"Lie," Janet stated coldly. "Jax Adler is currently under active investigation by the SEC. His accounts are frozen. He hasn't thrown a yacht party in eight months. He doesn't have access to Bradford's short data."
Kandy was trapped. The walls were closing in. Her chest heaved in a full-blown panic attack.
"I just know!" Kandy screamed, tears of frustration spilling over her eyelashes. "I'm chosen! God showed me the future! I know everything!"
Janet stared at her. Deep in her chest, a cold knot of certainty formed. It was the final confirmation. Kandy was a low-level reborn, her memories a polluted mess of half-truths and delusions of grandeur.
Janet decided right then. She wouldn't expose Kandy's delusion. Letting Kandy walk blindly into a doomed future, believing she was a prophet, was a punishment far worse than death.
Janet turned away. She grabbed the zipper of her duffel bag and yanked it shut with a sharp, metallic zip. She hoisted the heavy bag onto her shoulder.
Kandy saw Janet leaving and felt a sudden, desperate need to reclaim some shred of victory. She scrambled to her feet and lunged sideways, blocking the bedroom doorway.
Janet stopped. She looked at Kandy. It wasn't a look of anger. It was the look a human gives a dead cockroach on the floor. It made the hairs on Kandy's arms stand up.
"I hope," Janet whispered, her voice soft and dripping with lethal sweetness, "that in a few years, when you're changing Jax's adult diapers because his kidneys have completely shut down, you'll still be smiling at that diamond."
Kandy's stomach violently lurched. The visceral image of the smell, the sickness, the decay flashed in her mind. She gagged, her hand flying to her mouth.
"He's going to be a billionaire!" Kandy yelled through her fingers, tears streaming down her face. "He won't be sick!"
Janet didn't reply. She dropped her shoulder and slammed it hard into Kandy's collarbone. Kandy cried out, spinning out of the way.
Janet walked out the door, leaving her cousin weeping in the ruins of her own delusions.
