Chapter 4 - Rebecca’s Missing Will
Michael did not sleep.
Lily curled against his chest in the guest bedroom because she refused to enter her own room.
Every time footsteps passed in the hallway, she woke.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
“Vanessa come?”
“No.”
Michael hated how quickly she asked that question.
The next morning, his attorney, Daniel Brooks, arrived.
Daniel had represented Michael since his boxing days.
He read the guardianship petition twice.
“This wasn’t written yesterday.”
“How long?”
“Weeks. Maybe months.”
Michael handed him the note about the trust.
Daniel’s face changed.
“Where did you get this?”
“Behind the cabinet.”
Daniel sat down.
“Michael, Rebecca created a trust before Lily was born.”
“I know.”
“You know about the financial trust.”
Michael stared.
“There’s another one?”
Daniel hesitated.
“There was supposed to be.”
Michael’s anger returned.
“What does that mean?”
“Rebecca called me three weeks before delivery. She wanted to restructure her ownership in Vale Performance Group.”
Vale Performance Group owned boxing gyms, sports clinics, and commercial property.
Rebecca had inherited thirty-two percent from her father.
Worth nearly forty million dollars.
“She wanted her shares placed in trust for Lily,” Daniel said.
“That’s what happened.”
“Partly.”
Michael leaned forward.
“What does partly mean?”
Daniel took a breath.
“The final signed schedule disappeared after Rebecca died.”
Michael went still.
“Who had access?”
“You.”
“I was at the hospital.”
“Rebecca’s attorney.”
“He retired.”
“And your father.”
Michael looked up.
“My father?”
“Anthony was executor at the time.”
Michael rubbed his face.
Anthony Vale had died eighteen months earlier.
He could no longer answer questions.
Daniel continued.
“Without the signed schedule, her shares remained under the older trust structure.”
“Who controls that?”
“You, while Lily is a minor.”
“And if I’m declared incompetent?”
Daniel looked toward the guardianship petition.
“A court-appointed guardian could petition for control.”
Michael understood.
Vanessa didn’t need to inherit Lily’s money.
She only needed to control Lily.
Forty million dollars.
Corporate voting rights.
Real estate.
Everything.
Michael looked toward the hallway.
Lily sat with Mrs. Parker, the former nanny Michael had called back after Vanessa fired her months earlier.
Suddenly that firing made sense.
“Why didn’t you tell me the schedule was missing?”
“You were grieving. Anthony insisted Rebecca never completed it.”
Michael’s voice hardened.
“Did you believe him?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
Then Michael remembered something.
Rebecca’s final weeks.
Her sudden distrust of certain staff.
Her insistence that the living-room furniture not be replaced.
Her strange comment:
“If anything ever feels wrong, look where nobody thinks to look.”
Michael slowly turned toward the damaged cabinet.
“What if the missing schedule never left the house?”
May you like
👉 Rebecca had warned Michael to look where nobody would think to look—and Vanessa had spent months making sure nobody moved that cabinet.
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