Chapter 4 - The Inheritance Nobody Was Supposed to Know About)
Dylan followed Gwen into the library.
“Mom.”
She kept walking.
“Mom, wait.”
Gwen stopped beside the shelves.
Dylan shut the door.
Outside, Howard was speaking with the officers.
Pamela and Maren were arguing somewhere down the hall.
Dylan lowered his voice.
“What did she mean?”
“You heard her.”
“What inheritance?”
Gwen looked at him.
“When your father died, I had almost nothing.”
“I know.”
“I built everything afterward.”
“I know that too.”
“No. I don’t think you do.”
He frowned.
Gwen continued.
“You behave as though the money has always existed.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither was telling me I was unwelcome inside a property I purchased.”
Dylan looked away.
“I apologized.”
“No. You begged me not to enforce consequences.”
His eyes hardened.
“So that’s what today was? Punishment?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Protection.”
“From me?”
“Apparently.”
Dylan paced toward the window.
“I never wanted to steal from you.”
“You represented yourself as owner of my property.”
“I was desperate.”
“You lied.”
“I was trying to protect my family.”
Gwen laughed once.
“By risking prosecution?”
“No lender lost money.”
“Because they caught you.”
Dylan turned.
“I would have repaid it.”
“With what?”
He had no answer.
Gwen walked toward her desk.
“Your father left eighty-three thousand dollars in life insurance.”
Dylan blinked.
“I know.”
“That was everything.”
She opened a drawer.
“I turned it into a business.”
She removed an old photograph.
A twenty-eight-year-old Gwen stood beside a battered delivery truck.
Dylan had seen the picture before.
She placed it on the desk.
“I slept in that warehouse twice a week during the first year because I couldn’t afford both rent and fuel.”
“Mom.”
“I missed meals so employees wouldn’t miss payroll.”
“I know you worked hard.”
“No. You know the version we tell at charity dinners.”
Dylan’s face tightened.
“What does this have to do with the inheritance?”
“Everything.”
Gwen sat down.
“I created a trust three years ago.”
Dylan stared.
“The majority of my private holdings were intended to pass into it.”
“For Ethan?”
“For future generations.”
“And me?”
“You were part of the structure.”
“How much?”
Gwen’s expression changed.
“That is the first question you ask?”
Dylan realized his mistake.
“No. I mean…”
“How much?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You sounded exactly like Maren.”
He went quiet.
Gwen leaned back.
“The draft structure could eventually have placed assets worth more than eighty million dollars under family control.”
Dylan stopped breathing.
Gwen watched the number land.
He sat down slowly.
“Eighty?”
“More, depending on valuations.”
Dylan whispered something Gwen could not hear.
Then he looked at her.
“Was I supposed to control it?”
“That depended.”
“On what?”
“Character.”
He stared at her.
She continued.
“Competence. Stability. Responsibility. Whether you could protect assets instead of consume them.”
His face reddened.
“So you were testing me.”
“I was watching you.”
“For years?”
“I’m a mother. I’ve been watching you since the day you were born.”
Dylan stood abruptly.
“This is unbelievable.”
“What is?”
“You were sitting on eighty million dollars while I was drowning.”
Gwen stared at him.
There it was.
The sentence that changed everything.
Not I’m sorry.
Not I failed.
Not Maren manipulated me.
You were sitting on eighty million dollars while I was drowning.
Gwen rose.
“You earn four hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year.”
Dylan said nothing.
“You pay no mortgage.”
Silence.
“I covered Ethan’s education trust.”
He looked away.
“I gave you the use of a ten-million-dollar home.”
“Mom.”
“And you are telling me I failed you because I did not give you eighty million more?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You did.”
Dylan’s face crumpled.
For a moment, Gwen saw shame.
Then anger replaced it.
“Maybe if you had trusted me, none of this would’ve happened.”
Gwen’s voice dropped.
“I trusted you with a house.”
Dylan looked toward the floor.
“You tried to mortgage it.”
He had nothing left.
A knock came at the door.
Howard entered.
His expression told Gwen something had changed.
“What?”
“We found Victor.”
Dylan looked up.
“Where?”
Howard stared at him.
“Lincoln.”
Gwen frowned.
“He moved?”
“No.”
Howard closed the door.
“He never resigned and left Nebraska like we believed.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has been working for Caldwell Development Group.”
Dylan slowly turned toward the hallway.
Gwen did the same.
Maren had hired Victor.
Not after his resignation.
Before it.
Howard continued.
“And there’s more.”
“What?”
“Victor received three payments from a Caldwell subsidiary while he was still employed by you.”
Gwen’s stomach dropped.
“Amounts?”
“One hundred thousand. One hundred fifty. Then two hundred fifty.”
Dylan whispered, “Half a million.”
Howard nodded.
Gwen looked toward the door.
A terrible possibility had begun to form.
Maren had not simply learned about the inheritance.
She had paid for access.
And if she had spent half a million dollars to obtain information about Gwen’s estate plan, she expected to recover far more.
Howard spoke softly.
“We need to find out exactly what Victor gave her.”
Gwen looked at Dylan.
“No.”
Howard frowned.
“No?”
May you like
Gwen walked toward the door.
“We need to find out what she was planning to do with it.”
