Chapter 7 - THE PUBLIC WAR
The steps of the central courthouse were packed with hundreds of reporters, camera crews, and curious onlookers.
Victoria Vance stood behind a wall of microphones.
Her legal team surrounded her like a human shield.
Despite spending the night in a cell, her posture was remarkably rigid.
She wore a dark tailored suit and dark sunglasses.
Isabella stood right beside her, pale and red-eyed, holding onto her mother's arm for support.
"People of this city," Victoria began, her voice projected through the loudspeakers.
"What you witnessed last night was a carefully calculated, malicious attack on my family."
The reporters surged forward, shouting questions simultaneously.
"Mrs. Vance! Is it true you abandoned your daughter?"
"Is Isabella Vance really a twin?"
"Did you forge the medical records?"
Victoria raised her hand, silencing the crowd with her cold presence.
"The young woman who interrupted my daughter's birthday party is an impostor," Victoria declared firmly.
Isabella looked at her mother in shock.
An impostor? Isabella thought to herself. But the photo... the watch...
"She is a blackmailer who used forged documents and plastic surgery to impersonate my deceased daughter!" Victoria continued without flinching.
"My daughter Seraphina died twenty-five years ago of severe congenital heart failure!"
"We buried her with full honors!"
"This woman, whose real name is unknown, stole private family heirlooms to extort millions from Vance Enterprises!"
The crowd gasped.
The media fell into a violent frenzy of flashbulbs.
Isabella felt her stomach turn.
She knew her mother was lying.
She had seen the terrifying conviction in Seraphina's eyes.
She had seen the original records.
But Victoria was playing her final card: total denial.
Suddenly, a massive black SUV pulled up right at the curb in front of the courthouse steps.
The back door opened.
Seraphina stepped out, dressed in an identical white dress to the one Isabella was currently wearing.
The crowd went utterly wild.
"Look! It's her!"
"She's here!"
Seraphina walked gracefully up the stone steps, entirely unbothered by the security guards trying to block her path.
She stopped just three steps below Victoria and Isabella.
The two identical women stared at each other in the glaring sunlight.
"Plastic surgery, Victoria?" Seraphina asked, her voice easily picking up on the open microphones.
"Would you like to step into that courthouse right now and perform a live DNA test in front of every news channel in the country?"
Victoria's lip twitched slightly behind her sunglasses.
"I do not negotiate with criminals," Victoria hissed quietly.
"Then let the science speak," Seraphina said loudly, turning to face the cameras.
She pulled an official, sealed envelope from her coat.
"This is the court-ordered DNA match performed by the state forensic lab four days ago."
"Probability of maternity with Victoria Vance: 99.9 percent."
The reporters rushed forward, taking high-resolution photos of the sealed document.
Victoria's legal team began whispering frantically among themselves.
"You're lying!" Isabella screamed out of sheer desperation, stepping forward.
"You're trying to ruin my life!"
Seraphina looked up at Isabella with a look of profound pity.
"Isabella, you poor, foolish girl," Seraphina said softly.
"You still think she's trying to protect you."
Seraphina turned her eyes back to Victoria.
"Tell her the truth, Victoria."
"Tell Isabella why you really kept me alive in that secret facility for fifteen years before I escaped."
Isabella froze, her voice catching in her throat.
"Secret... facility?" Isabella whispered, turning to look at her mother.
Victoria's cold facade finally shattered.
A look of sheer, primitive terror crossed her face.
"Shut up!" Victoria screamed, losing her composure completely.
"Shut your mouth!"
"She didn't just give me away, Isabella," Seraphina announced to the world.
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"She kept me as a living organ bank."
"In case her precious Isabella ever needed a transplant."
