My mother set a bathroom scale beside my chair while twenty relatives were passing mashed potatoes.

The office of Harrison Vance was a museum of old money and suppressed intimidation. Mahogany bookshelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, filled with thick, leather-bound legal digests that smelled of dust and unearned privilege. A massive floor-to-ceiling window offered a sweeping, panoramic view of the freezing city skyline, beneath which sat a heavy oak desk carved from a single, ancient tree trunk. Behind it sat Harrison Vance himself—an elderly man with thinning silver hair, sharp, hawkish eyes, and a tailored suit that cost more than my first car.

"Shut the door, please," Vance said, his voice a gravelly baritone that commanded the room without raising a decibel. He didn't stand, nor did he gesture for us to take a seat. He simply steepled his fingers beneath his chin and watched us with the calculating coldness of a chess grandmaster surveying an unexpected pawn.

Ben kicked the heavy oak door shut behind us with a solid, echoing thud. The sound seemed to register a flicker of annoyance in Vance’s eyes, but the lawyer masked it quickly behind a mask of professional apathy.

"I understand from my front desk that you’ve made some rather... colorful accusations regarding our firm's integrity," Vance began, leaning back in his leather chair with a slow, deliberate creak. "Mr. Miller’s estate was settled over five years ago, under the direct supervision of this firm and in strict accordance with his final, legally binding testament. Any challenges to that distribution at this late date are not only legally frivolous, but frankly, insulting."

"Is that what you call a forged signature and a backdated notary stamp?" I stepped forward, slamming my phone down onto the center of his pristine desk, right over a stack of leather-bound folios. The screen lit up, displaying the side-by-side comparison of the real trust documents versus the altered paperwork Julianna had brandished at Thanksgiving. "Because where I come from, aiding and abetting the theft of a family home via falsified conveyance documents isn't just 'frivolous'—it’s a felony."

Vance didn't flinch. He slowly lowered his hands, leaned forward, and glanced down at the phone screen for a fraction of a second before looking back up at my face. His expression remained entirely unbothered, which sent a cold jolt of warning straight down my spine. This wasn't panic; this was preparation.

"Young lady," Vance said, his voice dripping with condescension, "papers get misplaced. Copies get blurred in transit. If Ms. Julianna Miller presented documentation authorizing her temporary stewardship of the property during the family's financial restructuring, it was processed through standard channels with the consent of the primary executor."

"Our mother never signed over her executorship!" Ben roared, stepping up so hard the floorboards seemed to vibrate. He slammed his palms onto the edge of the desk, leaning over Vance with an intimidating physical presence that finally made the older lawyer blink. "Don't sit here and play dumb with us, counselor. We know Aunt Clara and Julianna used your firm to sneak this through while our mother was hospitalized. And we know you profited from it!"

Vance’s eyes narrowed, a flash of genuine irritation cutting through his icy exterior. He stood up slowly, smoothing the front of his jacket with meticulous care. "Watch your tone, young man. You are treading on dangerous legal territory. Defamation suits are expensive, and unlike your family's current financial standing, I have an army of attorneys who specialize in destroying people who make baseless threats."

"It's not a threat," a cool, sharp voice echoed from the doorway behind us.

Ben and I spun around in unison. The heavy oak door, which Ben had just closed, was now pushed fully open. Standing in the threshold was a tall, striking woman in a sharp navy blue trench coat, her dark hair pulled back in a sleek bun. In her hand, she held a thick manila folder stamped with the official seal of the State Attorney General’s Office.