Katherine violently shoved five-year-old Clara out of her chair, sending the toddler crashing to the floor as water spilled everywhere, viciously shrieking that the "filthy parasite" was dirtying her seat.

The dial tone hummed through the vaulted foyer before Jocelyn cut the connection.

Katherine stared at the black phone screen, her manicured hand frozen mid-air. For three seconds, the grand foyer was dead silent, save for the rhythmic tick of the grandfather clock and Clara’s tiny sniffles against Jocelyn’s shoulder.

Then Katherine let out a loud, mocking bray of laughter.

“You are pathetic, Jocelyn,” Katherine sneered, crossing her arms over her chest, the gold bracelets on her wrist jangling. “Fire me? From Lumina? I own the patents! I am the founder and Chief Executive! Who was that on the phone, your paralegal from whatever flea-bitten agency you work for?”

Eleanor walked out from the dining room, a linen napkin clutched in her hand. “Jocelyn, apologize to your sister this instant. Making prank phone calls to intimidate your family is beneath even you.”

“Prank call?” Jocelyn’s voice was as cold as dry ice. “Ask her yourself, Mother.”

Richard appeared in the doorway, chewing slowly, his suit jacket unbuttoned. He pointed his silver dinner fork directly at Jocelyn’s face. “You’ve brought nothing but drama into this house since the day you married that deadbeat. You come to my anniversary, let your brat ruin a two-thousand-dollar antique runner, and now you’re playing corporate executive? You apologize to Katherine, or you leave this house and never set foot on Keller property again.”

“Dad, she’s delusional,” Katherine mocked, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder. “She probably hired an actor off Craigslist to pretend to be a lawyer. She’s always been jealous that I made the Forbes Thirty Under Thirty while she was clipping coupons for baby formula.”

“Did you check your email today, Katherine?” Jocelyn asked quietly.

“I don’t check work email on Sunday, darling,” Katherine scoffed. “I have underlings to handle the peasants.”

“Check it now,” Jocelyn said. “Or don't. Security will be at your downtown penthouse by five o’clock anyway.”

Katherine rolled her eyes, but her rosy complexion paled slightly around the edges. She pulled a gold-cased iPhone from her beaded purse. “Fine. I’ll indulge your pathetic little fantasy just so Dad can throw you out into the driveway himself.”

She tapped her screen.

Her thumb stopped moving.

Her phone screen lit up with twenty-seven unread notifications from Slack, fourteen missed calls from the corporate board, and a high-priority push alert from the Delaware Secretary of State.

“What... what is this?” Katherine muttered, her voice losing its razor-sharp edge.

“Read it out loud, Katherine,” Jocelyn commanded. “Let Mom and Dad hear how well your company is doing.”

“Katherine?” Eleanor frowned, stepping closer to her eldest daughter. “What does it say?”

Katherine’s fingers began to tremble. “It’s... it’s a glitch. The board held an emergency proxy vote at eleven a.m. They... they executed a hostile leveraged buyout by Apex Global Consortium. That’s impossible. Vanguard assured me our anti-takeover poison pill was airtight!”

“Your poison pill relied on the Series C preferred stock held by the Miller Trust,” Jocelyn stated, her tone entirely devoid of emotion. “I bought the Miller Trust out on Tuesday afternoon for eighty million cash. I liquidated your board by noon. And five minutes ago, I terminated your employment contract for cause.”

Richard stepped forward, his heavy brows furrowing into an angry line. “What nonsense are you spewing, Jocelyn? You don’t have eighty million dollars! You’re a middle-tier researcher!”

Jocelyn adjusted Clara on her hip, meeting her father’s bullying stare without blinking.

“I left your shadow ten years ago, Richard,” Jocelyn said, her voice ringing clear against the marble floors. “While you were using family trust money to bail out Katherine’s failed vanity projects, I founded Apex. I own your sister’s firm, I own Katherine’s biotech patents, and as of forty-eight hours ago, I own the secondary mortgage on this very house.”