Chapter 6 - THE FORTUNE MY MOTHER NEVER TOUCHED
The trust existed.
That was the first thing Nathan confirmed.
By noon the next day, an independent attorney named Rachel Bennett was sitting across from me in a private conference room.
She had no connection to Nathan’s organization.
That mattered to me.
I was finished trusting people simply because Nathan trusted them.
Rachel slid a folder toward me.
“Hannah Carter was the beneficiary of the Carter-Evelyn Trust.”
My mother’s name and Nathan’s mother’s name together.
My chest tightened.
“What’s in it?”
“Drake Harbor stock, investment accounts, and accumulated dividends.”
“How much?”
Rachel hesitated.
“Approximately thirty-one million dollars.”
I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
Not because it was funny.
Because three days earlier, I had been calculating whether I could afford to eat noodles for a month after burying my mother.
“Thirty-one million?”
“Yes.”
Nathan watched me quietly.
I looked at him.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Would you tell me if you did?”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
That answer would not have satisfied me yesterday.
Today, strangely, I believed him.
Rachel continued.
“Your mother never accessed the principal.”
“Why?”
“There’s a handwritten instruction.”
She passed me another page.
Mom had written:
If I live quietly, Bella lives safely. Money attracts questions. Questions attract Vincent.
I closed my eyes.
My mother had chosen poverty to keep me alive.
Nathan’s voice was rough.
“She sacrificed everything.”
“That’s what she did.”
I thought about every double shift.
Every coupon.
Every birthday when she insisted she didn’t need a gift.
I wanted to be angry.
Instead, I missed her so badly I could barely sit upright.
Nathan reached for my hand.
Then stopped before touching me.
He waited.
That tiny hesitation meant more than he knew.
I turned my hand over.
He took it.
Later that afternoon, I buried my mother.
Nathan stood at the back of the cemetery, away from the family section.
He did not approach until everyone else had left.
Then he placed white roses on her grave.
“I owe her my life.”
I wiped my eyes.
“She wouldn’t want you to waste it.”
His phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed almost instantly.
“What happened?”
Nathan turned toward me.
“My uncle just called an emergency board meeting.”
“So?”
“He found out about your shares.”
I stared at him.
Nathan’s voice dropped.
“With four percent, you have voting rights.”
“Why does Vincent care?”
“Because Samuel divided control before he died.”
Nathan looked toward my mother’s grave.
“If your mother’s shares are added to mine, Vincent loses the power he’s been hiding behind for twenty years.”
Then another vehicle pulled into the cemetery.
A black sedan.
May you like
Vincent Drake stepped out.
And he was smiling directly at me.
Related Stories
