Chapter 6 - The Hidden Documents
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Lucinda knew about the crippling debt. She had known for years.
That was exactly why she desperately needed Natalie to remain compliant. Natalie was not a beloved wife to them. She was financial collateral.
I looked around the opulent room again, my gaze hardening. The bank president was sitting comfortably near the front stage. So was the head of a private investment firm that had recently loaned Wexford Holdings a massive sum of money. There were also two influential members of the Hartwell trust advisory board standing near the bar.
Lucinda had intentionally invited them all. She wanted them to see Natalie smiling, heavily pregnant, deeply grateful, entirely dependent, and publicly, inextricably tied to the Wexford family name. She wanted them to firmly believe that the Hartwell money had already become a permanent, accessible part of the Wexford future.
But I had spent the entire previous month meticulously reading financial documents Lucinda never expected me to even know existed.
I had learned about the mysterious seventy-two thousand dollars quietly transferred from Natalie’s private savings into a shady consulting company that existed only on paper.
I had learned about the blatantly forged signature on a massive loan-extension document submitted to the bank.
I had learned about a horrific draft of a "new mother transition agreement" that would legally grant Cole and Lucinda temporary, absolute authority over Natalie’s financial accounts immediately after delivery.
I had learned about their insidious plan to aggressively pressure her into signing that document while she was exhausted, heavily medicated, and frightened in a sterile hospital room.
And that was not even the absolute worst part.
The worst part was the damning email Lucinda had sent directly to Cole three weeks earlier.
Once the baby is here, Natalie will be far too overwhelmed to object to anything. Make absolutely sure she signs the paperwork before Evelyn realizes what has happened.
May you like
I had printed that specific email. I had carried it into the room in a slim leather folder tucked beneath my arm. And while Lucinda sat on that plush sofa aggressively opening my granddaughter’s gifts as though she were dividing the spoils after a bloody war, I knew their elaborate performance had already officially ended.
She just did not know it yet.
