“These are the reports you received. These show the fund’s growth. These show that I should have been informed at eighteen and granted educational distributions. These show that Marcus accessed his trust at twenty-five. These show that Olivia’s is projected on schedule. So I think the complexity is actually over.”
My father’s jaw tightened.
Marcus spoke first.
“Wait. You didn’t know?”
I turned toward him.
“No. Did you?”
He looked stunned. “I knew about mine. I assumed— I just assumed yours had been handled the same way.”
There are moments when the privileged genuinely realize the system was different for someone else and still manage to sound wounded by the discovery. Marcus looked like he had been cheated too, though not in the same currency.
My mother tried another angle.
“We were trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
She spread her hands.
“From becoming dependent on inherited wealth. From losing perspective. You’ve always been so capable, Victoria. We wanted you to develop your own strength.”
I laughed then.
A sharp, joyless sound.
“How extraordinary that my strength required debt while Marcus’s required capital.”
No one answered.
So I kept going.