Beatrice straightened up. This was it. The voting stock was the true power.
“I spent a lifetime believing that fear was the only currency of leadership,” Blackwood read, reciting Alistair’s final words. “I broke my family to make them strong. But in the end, strength did not look like a fist. It looked like a hand washing the face of an enemy.”
Victoria froze. She looked up from her lap.
“To the only person in this family who possessed the strength to show mercy to a monster,” the lawyer read into the stunned silence. “To the only one who saw a human being inside the ruin… I leave the Crown.”
Blackwood looked directly at the former singer, the outsider, the woman who had been dragged into this family against her will.
“I hereby bequeath fifty-one percent of the voting stock and the Chairmanship of the Board to Victoria Vance.”