Chapter 7 - The Midnight Launch
Diane turned on her young attorney, screaming hysterically.
"Do something! You said we had a guaranteed twenty percent claim!"
The young lawyer closed his briefcase with a sharp snap, backing away toward the conference room doors.
"Mrs. Hart, you didn't disclose the existence of a prior holographic will or the diverted trust funds," the lawyer said, shaking his head.
"This case is an unmitigated disaster. My firm is withdrawing representation immediately."
He practically bolted through the door, leaving Diane and Richard standing alone before the firing squad of corporate litigators.
Diane began to hyperventilate, clutching her chest, looking at my father with frantic, venomous rage.
"Richard! Fix this! Do something, you spineless coward!"
Richard looked at his furious wife, then looked across the table at me.
He saw the daughter he had discarded like trash, now sitting at the head of a multi-million-dollar empire, flanked by the most powerful executives in the state.
He finally realized the horrifying, irreversible truth: he had traded his daughter's soul for a woman who despised his weakness.
Richard picked up the pen with trembling, sweat-slicked fingers.
He signed the unconditional waiver, releasing every claim, every lien, and every right to my mother’s name forever.
Diane let out a choked shriek of defeat, snatched her fake-leather purse, and stormed out of the office, slamming the heavy doors behind her.
Richard lingered by the table, his head bowed, tears carving clean tracks down his wrinkled, tired face.
"Lily..." he whispered, looking up with pathetic, broken eyes.
"Can you ever forgive me?"
I looked at him, feeling no anger, no hatred, and no desire for revenge.
I felt only the clean, vast detachment of someone looking at a stranger who had lost his way in the dark.
"I forgive you, Dad," I said softly.
"Because carrying anger toward you takes up space that belongs to my mother’s dream."
"Now please leave."
"I have a company to launch."
Richard nodded slowly, swallowed his tears, and shuffled out into the hallway, his shoulders permanently hunched in defeat.
At 11:59 PM that night, the team gathered around the central monitors in the Vance Biocosmetics war room.
Mrs. Kim held a glass of sparkling cider, while Brooke squeezed my hand tightly beside the control desk.
When the clock struck 12:00 AM, the master server went live to the global public.
LUXE SKIN VEIL: NOW AVAILABLE.
Within sixty seconds, the digital traffic graph spiked into a vertical red wall.
Ten thousand orders.
Fifty thousand orders.
One hundred thousand orders.
At 12:14 AM—exactly fourteen minutes after launch—the digital banner on our website flashed across the world:
SOLD OUT.
Seven million dollars in gross retail sales cleared our merchant gateway in less than a quarter of an hour.
The entire conference room erupted into cheering, popping champagne corks, and hugging as tears streamed down my face.
Brooke threw her arms around my neck, sobbing with pure, unadulterated joy.
"You did it, Lil! Mom’s name is everywhere!"
I pulled my mother’s green notebook from my bag, holding it tightly against my chest, looking through the panoramic glass windows at the glittering Cincinnati skyline.
May you like
"We did it, Mom," I whispered into the starlit night.
"We did it."
