Chapter 1: The Fall of the House of Vance
The leather belt slipped from Julian’s hand and hit the hardwood floor with a sound that seemed too loud for the silence in the room.
For a moment, no one moved.
For months, inside the Vance estate, Julian’s word had been final—law wrapped in wealth and arrogance. But that illusion cracked the second the front doors swung open.
Senator Arthur Vance stood in the doorway.
Behind him: three state troopers.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
“Drop to your knees. Now,” one of the troopers said, hand already near his weapon.
Julian blinked, stunned. “Father… wait, you don’t understand—this isn’t what it looks like. Clara was hysterical, I was just—”
“Enough.”
Arthur’s voice cut through the room like steel.
He didn’t even look at his son at first.
His gaze moved past him—to the couch.
Clara sat there trembling, one arm wrapped tightly around her pregnant belly. Her face was bruised, her eyes swollen, but she didn’t look away anymore.
In the corner, her younger sister Lily finally spoke through shaking breath.
“He locked her in. Took her phone. If the alarm hadn’t gone off—”
Arthur raised a hand slightly. “I know.”
That was all he said.
The troopers moved instantly.
May you like
Julian barely had time to react before he was slammed against the marble pillar, cuffs snapping shut around his wrists.
For the first time in his life, he wasn’t in control of anything.
