My Billionaire Father Pretended I Was Just a Maid At a $40,000 Dinner—Then the Most Feared Mafia Boss Stood Up, Exposed His Lies, and Declared War! / Chapter 84 / 100

Chapter 84 - The Approval Dated Too Late

Rebecca brought the attachment to Nora’s office rather than the board meeting. She said she did not want the document passed around before it could be authenticated. That was the first careful decision I had seen her make without waiting for someone else to tell her what was safe.

The page contained a short handwritten statement attributed to Anne: I approve Adrian’s temporary administration of the reserve until the access matter is resolved.

The signature looked like my mother’s. The date, however, was three weeks after the amendment had supposedly been signed and less than two months before her death.

“Could she have agreed later?” Madison asked.

“Yes,” Nora said. “The wording could support that. We need to know whether she understood the full effect and whether the document is genuine.”

Beatrice examined it. “The signature looks plausible. I can’t verify it from a copy.”

Rebecca said the page had been clipped to the amendment in the correspondence box. She could not say when it was added or who had placed it there.

The accountant compared the date with the ledger. Adrian’s company had already begun administering transfers before the date on the approval page. That did not disprove Anne’s later consent. It did mean the page could not authorize the earlier transfers.

The board meeting went forward. Madison spoke first. She described the documents she had signed, what she had been shown, and what she had not been told. She did not excuse her signature. She also did not accept responsibility for the map that had been attached later.

The board voted to suspend the disputed consent, preserve the foundation’s original records, and commission a separate review of the amendment. It did not declare the amendment invalid. The chair said the board needed a complete evidentiary record before taking that step.

Ruth asked that the center’s operational decisions remain with its current staff while the access question was reviewed. The board agreed to that interim arrangement.

Afterward, Madison walked with me to the parking lot.

“I thought I had to pick between saying I was wrong and saying they misled me,” she said.

“You can do both.”

“That feels uncomfortable.”

“It should.”

She gave a small, tired smile. “I’m starting to understand why you ask so many questions.”

“I’m still learning which ones are mine to answer.”

Before we left, the court’s records office sent Nora an update about the original amendment. The paper had been stored in a box that also contained an envelope marked “Anne—personal.” It had not been opened with the ledger because the administrator had asked for a separate inventory.

The envelope was addressed to Beatrice.

Beatrice reviewed the handwriting on the outside and recognized it as Anne’s. Nora arranged for the envelope to be opened in the presence of the record custodian and counsel. It contained two pages, both handwritten. The first was a note thanking Beatrice for continuing to question the reserve accounts.

The second page was a draft instruction. Anne wrote that she wanted an independent administrator only if the access agreement remained intact and no one in the family could redirect the reserve without written notice to every named beneficiary.

“I never received this,” Beatrice said.

“Was it ever sent?” Nora asked.

“There’s no mailing mark.”

The draft did not mention Adrian. It did not approve the disputed amendment. It described conditions that were missing from the signed page.

The board’s counsel requested that the draft be included in the review. Charles’s attorney objected that it was not an executed instrument. Nora agreed. It was not proof of a final instruction. It was evidence of what Anne had been considering.

As we left, Beatrice asked to keep a copy.

“I want to compare the wording with my old files,” she said. “If Anne sent me this, I would have recorded it.”