Chapter 4 - A FORTUNE TAKEN
The video continued.
Charles Walker leaned toward the camera.
"My father taught me that wealth made our family untouchable."
"He was wrong."
He did not look away from the screen.
Charles continued.
"The first Walker companies were purchased with assets stolen through forged guardianship transfers."
"Guardianship transfers?"
Gabriel nodded slowly.
"Orphans. Widows. Families who couldn't fight back."
"Enough of this circus."
Adrian opened it again.
"Sit down."
The video resumed.
Charles named properties Adrian knew.
Warehouses.
Downtown land now worth hundreds of millions.
Then Charles said a name that made Emma grip the chair.
"The largest theft involved the Carver Trust."
"Carver."
"My family."
Gabriel nodded.
"Celeste discovered the same thing."
Charles explained that two Carver sisters had inherited land from their grandfather decades earlier.
A Walker attorney forged a competency petition against their mother.
Control of the trust shifted to a Walker shell company.
The girls grew up believing the money was gone.
One of those girls later became Celeste and Emma's mother.
"So Celeste married into the family that stole from hers."
Emma whispered, "She didn't know when she married you."
"Did you know?"
She said nothing.
"Did you know who Celeste was when I brought her home?"
"Of course I knew."
Emma stared at her.
"You let them marry."
"I encouraged it."
"Why?"
"Because marriage solved the claim."
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
"There it is."
Adrian frowned.
If a Carver heir married a Walker heir and their assets were folded together, any future challenge to the old transfers became almost impossible to separate.
Celeste had unknowingly become the perfect legal shield.
"And then she figured it out."
Victoria said nothing.
"What happened to my father after he recorded this?"
Gabriel stared at him.
"He scheduled a meeting with federal investigators."
May you like
Adrian felt cold.
"And the next morning his brakes failed."
