Chapter 13 - Victor Finally Understood He Had No Side Left
The turning point for Victor came during his deposition.
Up to that moment, he still seemed to believe he could bully, charm, or outlast everyone. He smirked through some questions. He called my father vindictive. He suggested I was emotionally unstable under family pressure. He even implied Emma had become difficult because I filled her head with “memorial fantasies” about Andrew.
Then my father’s attorney slid a document across the table.
It was Andrew’s unsent termination letter.
Not a draft accusation.
A final version, prepared the day he died and saved to an archive by the company’s outside IT contractor during an old server migration. It stated clearly that Andrew intended to end Victor’s consulting role, conduct a formal audit, and seek legal remedies if the missing funds were not returned.
Attached to it was a calendar entry confirming Andrew had planned to meet my father the next morning.
Victor went silent.
For the first time, he had no casual explanation ready.
The attorney asked him a simple question: “When exactly were you planning to tell Claire that her first husband had discovered you were stealing from him?”
Victor looked at his own lawyer.
Then at the table.
Then nowhere.
That silence did more damage than any outburst could have.
By then he had already lost physical access to the house, access to Emma, and control over our household finances. The civil case was tightening. The reopened death file had publicly established that he lied about his contact with Andrew on the last day of his life. And now the man he had replaced had effectively risen from the record to accuse him in writing.
That was when Victor finally understood something my father had known from the beginning:
His danger had always depended on being the version of events closest to me.
Now he was the version of events farthest from the truth.
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And nobody in the room was afraid of him anymore.
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