The drive to the Vance Estate was a silent, suffocating affair. Elena sat in the back of Silas's reinforced SUV, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Between her and Silas sat Leo and Mia, their small faces pressed against the tinted glass as the bustling city of Lagos faded into the lush, gated greenery of the elite outskirts.
"Is this where you live, Silas?" Leo asked, his voice echoing in the quiet cabin. He didn't call him 'Daddy' yet, and the formal use of his name made Silas's jaw tighten in a silent wince.
"It's where I stay," Silas replied, his voice rough. "But it hasn't felt like a home for a long time."
Elena looked out the window as the massive iron gates—crested with the Vance 'V'—swung open. Five years ago, she had been shoved through these gates in the back of a taxi, her few belongings in a plastic bag, while a torrential rain washed away her dignity. Returning now in a motorcade of armored vehicles felt like a hollow victory.
The SUV pulled up the circular cobblestone driveway. Waiting on the grand marble steps was Beatrice Vance. She was dressed in an impeccably tailored cream suit, looking every bit the grieving widow and dignified matriarch. But Elena saw the flicker of sheer terror in the older woman's eyes before it was masked by a plastic smile.
"Silas, darling! You didn't tell me we were having guests," Beatrice chirped as the car door opened. Her eyes landed on the twins, and for a split second, her mask slipped into a snarl.
Silas stepped out first, his presence looming over his stepmother. He didn't offer a greeting. "They aren't guests, Beatrice. They are the owners. And you are in their way."
Elena stepped out next, holding Mia's hand while Leo walked sturdily by her side. She met Beatrice's gaze with a cold, level stare. "Hello, Beatrice. You look pale. Did you have a restless night? Perhaps the sound of failing plans kept you awake?"
Beatrice's knuckles turned white as she gripped her pearl necklace. "I don't know what you're implying, Elena. But I must say, bringing children into this... corporate mess... is quite beneath you."
"What's beneath me is the dirt you tried to bury me in five years ago," Elena hissed, stepping closer until she could smell Beatrice's cloying lily-scented perfume. "The audit starts in one hour. Every room in this house, every safe, and every digital drive will be searched. Silas has granted me full access."
Silas turned to his head of security. "Marcus, take the children to the sunroom. Nobody enters without my or Elena's direct authorization. Not even family."
As the children were led away, the atmosphere shifted from tense to lethal. Silas grabbed Beatrice by the arm—not roughly, but with a firm, inescapable grip—and led her into the grand foyer.
"I know it was you, Beatrice," Silas growled, the echoes of the marble hall magnifying his fury. "The penthouse breach. The sedatives. You tried to kidnap my children."
"You have no proof!" Beatrice shrieked, her voice echoing up to the vaulted ceilings. "You're letting this... this common girl cloud your judgment!"
"The legacy is theirs by birth!" Silas roared, his voice shaking the crystal chandeliers. "And if you ever touch them again, I will personally ensure you spend the rest of your life in a cell so small you'll forget what the sky looks like."
Elena watched the confrontation from the doorway, a strange mixture of triumph and weariness washing over her. She had spent five years wanting this—wanting Silas to finally see his stepmother for the snake she was.
"Silas," Elena said softly, cutting through the shouting. "The auditors are here."
A line of men in black suits, carrying high-end forensic laptops, marched into the foyer. Among them was Mark, Elena's lead consultant. He gave her a sharp nod.
"Start with the West Wing," Elena ordered. "And don't overlook the foundation's archives. I have reason to believe some 'donations' were used to fund a certain private investigation into my whereabouts five years ago."
Beatrice let out a strangled sob and fled up the stairs, but Elena knew it wasn't a surrender. It was a retreat to find a new weapon.
Silas walked over to Elena, his breathing heavy. He looked exhausted, the weight of his guilt and his new responsibilities visible in the lines around his eyes. "Are you satisfied?"
"I'll be satisfied when she's gone, Silas. And when my children can sleep without a guard at their door," Elena replied.
She turned to follow the auditors, but Silas caught her hand. His touch was warm, a stark contrast to the cold stone of the manor. "I'm sorry, Elena. For all of it. This house... I should have burned it down the day you left."
"Burning it is easy, Silas," Elena said, pulling her hand away gently. "Rebuilding something worth living in... that's the hard part."
She left him standing in the center of the cold, echoing foyer and walked toward the West Wing. Every step was a battle against her own memory. She passed the mahogany-paneled library where Silas had first told her he loved her, and the grand dining hall where she had once sat, feeling like an ant under the magnifying glass of the Vance family's judgment.
She found the audit team in the basement archives. Mark looked up from a computer screen, his expression grim.
"Elena, you need to see this," he said, gesturing to a scanned document from five years ago. "We found something else. A series of payments made to a private clinic in the outskirts of the city, dated three days after you were thrown out."
Elena's heart skipped a beat. She leaned over the screen. "A clinic? I was never taken to a clinic."
"Exactly," Mark said, tapping the screen. "These payments weren't for your care. They were for a 'disposal' service. Beatrice didn't just want you gone, Elena. She wanted to make sure that if you were pregnant, the 'problem' was dealt with before Silas could find out. She had men looking for you that night."
A cold, nauseating wave of horror washed over Elena. She gripped the edge of the desk so hard her knuckles turned white.
"Elena?"
She turned to see Silas standing at the entrance of the archives. He had followed her. From the look on his face, he had heard everything.
His eyes were no longer storm-grey; they were black with a lethal, concentrated rage. He walked toward the screen, his gaze fixed on the digital trail of his stepmother's cruelty.
"She tried to hunt you?" Silas's voice was a whisper, but it carried more weight than a scream. "While you were carrying my children in the middle of a hurricane, she was paying people to find you and... 'dispose' of you?"
"It seems your family legacy is even bloodier than I thought, Silas," Elena said, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to stay composed.
Silas didn't say a word. He turned and stormed out of the basement, his footsteps echoing like thunder through the house. Elena followed him, sensing that the time for audits and lawyers was over.
She reached the grand foyer just in time to see Silas dragging a heavy, antique safe out of Beatrice's private study and into the center of the hall. Beatrice was there, screaming and clawing at his arms, her perfect hair finally unravelling.
Silas ignored her, using a heavy fire extinguisher to smash the keypad of the safe. With a groan of tortured metal, the door swung open. He reached inside and pulled out a stack of blue folders—the original, unedited security logs of the Vance estate.
"The logs you said were corrupted five years ago, Beatrice?" Silas growled, holding them up. "The logs that show Elena never entered the server room? The logs that show you entering my office at 2:00 AM with a thumb drive?"
Beatrice fell to her knees, the white of her suit staining against the marble. "I did it for you, Silas! She was a nobody!"
"You are the only thing ruining this name, Beatrice," Silas said, his voice dropping to a terrifying calm. He looked at the security guards standing by the door. "Take her to the guest quarters. Lock the door. And call the police."
As the guards led a sobbing, hysterical Beatrice away, Silas turned back to Elena. He looked like a man who had just finished a war, only to realize he had been fighting on the wrong side the entire time.
"It's done," he said, his shoulders sagging.
Elena looked at the folders scattered on the floor—the proof of her innocence that had arrived five years too late. "It's not done, Silas. This was the easy part. Now, we have to tell the children why their grandmother is going to jail."