PART8

“Within three years.”

I stared at him.

Then I pushed the document back.

“No.”

His face collapsed.

“Dad, please.”

“No.”

“You don’t understand what’s at stake.”

“I understand exactly what’s at stake.”

I pointed toward the hallway.

“Your company.”

Then I pointed toward myself.

“My trust.”

Then I looked at him.

“You already spent five years risking the second one.”

He stood slowly.

His voice was barely audible.

“I deserve that.”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“I know.”

He reached the door.

Before leaving, he turned around.

“Dad?”

“What?”

“If you give everything to Melissa…”

I waited.

“What happens to me?”

I looked at my son for a long time.

“That depends on what you do next.”

He left.

I thought the conversation was over.

It wasn’t.

Because the next morning, Larry arrived with an investigator and one final document.

He placed it on my bedside table.

“We found the source of the first payment.”

I looked down.

The name printed on the document made my heart stop.

It wasn’t Richard’s business partner.

It wasn’t Caroline.

It wasn’t even a development company.

It was a company registered under a name I recognized immediately.

Bennett Family Holdings LLC.

And the listed manager was…

Richard Bennett.

Larry looked at me.

“This company was created three months before your son asked you to sign the agreement.”

I stared at the page.

Then I noticed something even more disturbing.

The company’s registered address wasn’t Richard’s office.

It wasn’t his home.

It was my house.

Someone had been building a financial plan around my property for years.

And now I finally knew who.

But I still didn’t know why Richard had gone to such extraordinary lengths to control land he claimed was worthless.

Larry turned the page.

“There’s one more name.”

I looked down.

And when I saw it, I realized this wasn’t just about Richard anymore.

Caroline had not been acting alone.

She had been receiving the payments.

But someone else had been giving her instructions.

Someone who had been inside my house…

someone I had trusted…

for almost thirty years.

The name at the bottom of the page was Caroline Bennett.

My wife.

For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe.

I looked at Larry.

“You’re telling me Caroline was giving Richard instructions?”

Larry shook his head.

“No. I’m telling you we found evidence that someone was directing the payments through Caroline’s accounts.”

He slid another page toward me.

“This is the person who authorized the original transfer.”

I looked down.

And my stomach dropped.

It wasn’t Caroline.

It wasn’t Richard.

It was my brother, Daniel.

My younger brother.

The same man who had spent the last ten years telling me I had been foolish to hold onto that worthless piece of land.

The same man who had attended every Thanksgiving dinner.

The same man who had stood beside Caroline at my daughter’s graduation.

The same man who had once told me:

“Boris, family should never let money come between them.”

I stared at the signature.

“Daniel?”

Larry nodded.

“We traced the original funding source through three companies. The money eventually came from an investment group Daniel has been associated with for years.”

I shook my head.

“That doesn’t prove he orchestrated everything.”

“No.”

Larry opened another folder.

“But this does.”

Inside was an email.

It had been sent six years earlier.

The subject line read:

Bennett Property Strategy

I read the first paragraph.

Then the second.

Then I stopped.

Daniel had written:

Boris doesn’t understand what the property will be worth once the highway project is approved. Richard is ambitious enough to handle the development. Caroline can keep Boris calm until the agreement is completed.

My hands began shaking.

Larry quietly took the page from me.

“There are twelve emails.”

“Twelve?”

“Twelve that we’ve recovered so far.”

“What did they want?”

CONTINUE READING PART9…