Chapter 6: Confronting Eleanor Privately

The air in Marcus’s studio thickened, heavy with the weight of the revelation. The TV blared Victoria’s indignant denials in the background, but our attention was fixed on Eleanor. She sat there, a picture of calm composure, even as the old documents lay damningly before us.

“Mama Nora,” I said, my voice barely a whisper, the betrayal sharp in my throat. “Is this true? You started Peach Tree Holdings?”

Eleanor turned from the TV, her eyes meeting mine without a flicker of remorse. “Some things,” she said, her voice steady and clear, “must be done to protect a legacy.”

“Protect a legacy?” Marcus interjected, his voice rising in disbelief. “You orchestrated this whole thing? The shell company, the land deals? The kickbacks?”

She nodded slowly. “Arthur was becoming soft. Sentimental. He was going to sell the estate, scatter our influence. I couldn’t allow that. Not after everything we built.”

“So you locked yourself in the basement?” I pressed, the pieces of the puzzle clicking into place with sickening precision. “You put yourself in a cage to make Victoria look like a monster?”

A faint, almost imperceptible smile played on her lips. “Charlotte, my dear, you always were resourceful. So predictable in your loyalty. I knew you would return.”

The cold calculation in her eyes was chilling. My grandmother, the fragile victim, had played us all.

“Victoria became too ambitious,” Eleanor continued, her gaze unwavering. “She thought she could run the show. She was selling off pieces of our empire, yes, but she was doing it without subtlety, without grace. She was a loud, unrefined threat to our true power base.”

“You set her up,” I stated, the realization hitting me with full force. “You used her greed and my deployment to create this scenario.”

“A strategic maneuver,” she corrected, a note of pride in her voice. “The DuBose name, the family legacy… it needed a purification. Victoria was a cancerous growth. You, Charlotte, were the surgeon.”

She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. “I knew you would break me out. I knew you would expose Victoria. It was the only way to remove her without sullying the DuBose name directly. She’s the villain, the outsider. We are the victims, the inheritors.”

“And Arthur?” Marcus asked, his face pale. “Where is Dad?”

Eleanor merely shrugged, a gesture of indifference that made my blood run cold. “He grew tired of the game. Or perhaps, the game grew tired of him.”

My mind flashed back to the lake house, my father’s meticulous ledger, his “insurance policy.” He hadn’t just been documenting Victoria’s corruption; he’d been documenting his own family’s. He hadn’t wanted to sell the estate; he had wanted out.

The depth of the family’s corruption, orchestrated by the very matriarch I had risked everything to save, was a twist beyond anything I could have imagined. Eleanor had weaponized my loyalty, my sense of duty, turning me into an unwitting pawn in her ruthless political chess game.

I looked from Eleanor’s placid face to the blaring news report, where Victoria was still feigning outrage. Two sides of the same coin, locked in a brutal battle for power, and I had been caught in the crossfire.

“You’re not going to get away with this,” I said, my voice low and shaking.

Eleanor merely raised an eyebrow. “Dear Charlotte, I already have. Victoria is crumbling, and the DuBose legacy will remain intact, purged of its weak links.”