The massive wall-mounted screen flickered from the corporate logo to a high-definition video feed: the corridor of the forty-second floor.
Evelyn’s face instantly drained of color. She bolted upright, her hands gripping the edge of the mahogany table. "Turn that off! This is a malicious fabrication—it's an invasion of privacy!"
"Privacy?" Julian turned to face the assembly, his gaze sweeping over the startled board members before resting gently on Clara. "This is the unedited, multi-angle security archive from Horizon Tower's permanent hardware. Every frame time-stamped, cryptographically hashed, and verified by our chief security officer."
The auditorium fell into a dead, suffocating silence as the footage played on loop—showing Evelyn deliberately tripping herself, shattering the vase, and staging the assault narrative down to the whispered monologue.
Clara stared at the screen, her hand flying to her mouth as the full, sickening magnitude of her family's deception crashed over her. She turned her head slowly, looking from the screen to her mother, whose composure had entirely shattered into trembling panic.