PART 2
The music outside grew louder while I breathed through another contraction on the bathroom floor.
Someone tried the handle.
“Claire?” Celeste called. “Mom says you spilled something.”
“My water broke. Open the door.”
Silence followed.
Then she laughed softly.
“Of course you chose today.”
I heard Victoria whisper, “The ambulance will bring sirens. Tell the staff she is drunk.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
Mara remained connected through an encrypted open line, recording every word.
Celeste raised her voice.
“You’ve always been jealous of me.”
I almost smiled.
Even then, they needed an audience.
“I’m in labor,” I said. “This is your last chance to unlock the door.”
Victoria answered, “Do not threaten us in our own vineyard.”
That sentence mattered.
The vineyard was not legally theirs.
Three years earlier, Bellacourt had nearly collapsed beneath its debts.
Victoria persuaded me to place the estate into a restructuring trust, claiming it would preserve the family legacy.
She never read the controlling documents.
I had contributed the rescue capital through a private inheritance from my mother.
In exchange, the trust gave me authority to remove management for fraud, criminal behavior, or reckless endangerment.
They believed the money had come from Evan.
