“I agreed because I believed you were being pushed into something dangerous emotionally. I didn’t realize the financial side was more complicated.”
I turned toward him.
“Are you saying my family wanted to use me?”
“I’m saying someone wanted to make sure your name disappeared from a document.”
“What document?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he opened a message on his phone.
“There was a file attached to the transfer offer,” he said. “I saved a copy.”
He held the phone out.
I took it.
The document was a scanned legal agreement. Most of it was written in dense language, but one section had been highlighted.
I read it once.
Then again.
My name appeared beside the words *beneficial ownership*.
I looked up.
“What is this?”
“An inheritance designation.”
I scanned the page again.
The document referred to a private investment company established years earlier by my late mother.
My late mother.
I had been told she left no assets beyond a few pieces of jewelry and a collection of books.
But the agreement stated that a portion of the company’s holdings had been placed in a trust for her future children.
The beneficiary listed beneath it was *Tessa Elaine Langford*.
My hands began to tremble.
“That can’t be right.”
“I thought the same thing.”
“My mother didn’t have a company.”
“She did.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Silas’s face was solemn.
“Because the trust was scheduled to mature on your thirtieth birthday.”
I stared at him.
“I’m twenty-nine.”
“Your birthday is in six weeks.”
The rain continued falling against the roof.
I felt as though the room had shifted beneath me, rearranging every memory I had trusted.
“My father knew?”
“Yes.”
“Marlene knew?”
“Yes.”
“Brielle?”
“I don’t know.”
I lowered the phone.
“How much is in the trust?”
Silas didn’t answer.
He took the phone from my hands and opened another message.
The amount appeared in a single line.
I read it once, certain I had misunderstood.
Then I read it again.
$2,400,000,000.00
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Silas spoke quietly.
“The transfer was initiated tonight because someone tried to move the trust before your birthday.”
I looked at him.
“Who?”
His phone chimed.
A new message had arrived.
Silas read it, and the color drained from his face.
“What is it?”
He turned the screen toward me.
The message contained only one sentence:
The trustees have located Tessa. Four vehicles are already on their way to the cabin.
-END OF PART 2
