Chapter 3 - The TrustThe password opened the second folder.
Inside were legal documents.
Elena had created a trust for Oliver worth forty-two million dollars.
Adrian knew she had family money.
He did not know how much.
The trust had one unusual condition.
If Adrian died or became legally incapacitated, custody and financial oversight would pass to a designated guardian.
Maria.
Adrian stared.
“You?”
Maria nodded.
“I didn’t ask for it.”
Vanessa laughed.
“There it is.”
Adrian looked at her.
“What?”
“Your wife trusted the nanny more than her husband.”
Maria stepped forward.
“That’s not what it says.”
Vanessa pointed at the screen.
“It says if he loses capacity, you control the money.”
“No. A bank controls the money.”
“And you control the child.”
Maria’s face hardened.
“I would protect him.”
Vanessa smiled.
“Exactly.”
Adrian hated how easily she turned truth into suspicion.
He kept reading.
There was a second guardian.
If Maria could not serve, custody went to Elena’s brother, Daniel.
Vanessa was nowhere in the documents.
Then Adrian found an amendment.
Dated five days before Elena died.
Emergency exclusion:
Vanessa Sterling shall have no access to Oliver Cole.
Adrian looked at Vanessa.
“What happened between you and Elena?”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“She became paranoid.”
“About what?”
“Me.”
“Why?”
“Because I found out she was hiding things.”
Maria said, “You were stealing from the foundation.”
Vanessa turned.
“Careful.”
Adrian looked at Maria.
“What foundation?”
Elena had run a medical charity.
Vanessa served on its board.
Maria opened another file.
Transfers.
Vendor payments.
Consulting invoices.
More than two million dollars routed to a company tied to Vanessa’s brother.
Vanessa’s face changed.
Adrian whispered:
“Elena found this.”
Maria nodded.
“And then she died.”
Vanessa snapped:
“I did not kill her.”
No one had said she did.
The room went cold.
Then the baby monitor on the table crackled.
A woman’s voice whispered through it:
“Adrian?”
Everyone froze.
May you like
Oliver was upstairs.
No one should have been in the nursery.
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