CHAPTER 4 — MY FATHER'S SECRET
That evening, I went through my father's old belongings.
His journals.
His business records.
His photographs.
Everything.
For hours, I found nothing.
Then I remembered something.
After his funeral, he had left me a locked wooden box.
He told me never to open it until I had a reason.
At the time, I thought it was sentimental.
I found the box in the back of my closet.
Inside were documents.
Property deeds.
Bank statements.
Letters.
And one envelope with my name on it.
I opened it.
The letter was dated two months before my father's death.
My hands trembled as I read.
He wrote that he had discovered financial fraud inside our family company.
Millions of dollars had been moved through secret accounts.
But the money wasn't the most disturbing part.
My father had discovered that someone had been using Emily's name.
Not officially.
Through a hidden trust.
A trust established before she was born.
The beneficiary was my daughter.
And the amount attached to it was enormous.
Almost forty million dollars.
I sat there in silence.
Then I found another document.
The trust had one condition.
If anything happened to me before Emily turned eighteen, control of the trust would temporarily pass to a designated guardian.
The guardian was not Claire.
It was someone else.
Someone I knew.
My older brother, Michael.
I stared at the name.
Michael.
The same initial as the mysterious contact in Claire's phone.
My brother.
I called him.
No answer.
I called again.
Still nothing.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message.
From Michael.
“We need to talk.”
I replied:
“Where?”
His answer came immediately.
“Not over the phone.”
That night, Claire entered my study.
She saw the documents spread across the desk.
She stopped.
“You found it.”
I slowly looked up.
“What did I find?”
She started crying.
“The trust.”
“You knew?”
She nodded.
“How long?”
“Three years.”
I stood up.
“You knew my father left Emily forty million dollars?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“I wanted to.”
“When?”
She looked at the floor.
“Before everything went wrong.”
“What everything?”
She didn't answer.
I stepped closer.
“Claire, tell me the truth.”
She whispered:
“Michael knows about the trust too.”
My heart sank.
“What did my brother want?”
Claire wiped her tears.
“He wanted access to it.”
“And you?”
“I refused.”
“Then why did you keep meeting him?”
She looked at me.
“Because he threatened us.”
I stared at her.
“What did he threaten?”
May you like
She whispered the words that changed everything.
“He said if I didn't cooperate, he would make it look like you were responsible for Emily's death.”
