Chapter 14 - Aurelia Holdings
|
The room grew deathly quiet as the full weight of Ethan’s nightmare plot hung in the air.
Rachel Stein, my attorney, stepped into the room holding a new stack of court documents. She looked at Vincent and Paul, giving them a brief nod before turning her sharp gaze to me.
“It gets worse, Lena,” Rachel said plainly, pulling up a chair. “We just received the preliminary discovery files from the District Attorney’s office regarding the search warrant executed on Ethan’s personal laptop.”
“What else did he do?” I asked, my voice hardening. I had reached the limit of my shock; now, only cold anger remained.
“Ethan knew that once the trust activated upon the birth of your daughter, the funds would be placed into a primary bank account under your sole signature,” Rachel explained, pointing to a document. “To get his hands on that money, he needed legal control over you.”
“The affidavit,” I remembered suddenly. “The document he brought to the apartment before he broke my arm!”
“Precisely,” Rachel said. “It wasn't just a statement saying you fell down the stairs. Hidden within the secondary pages was a full durable power of attorney clause and a spousal conservatorship petition.”
“He was going to claim I was mentally unfit because of post-partum depression,” I realized, the blood running cold in my veins. “He was going to commit me to a private facility and manage the six hundred million dollars himself!”
“And if that failed?” Vincent asked, his voice dropping into a register that signaled absolute fatality. “What was his backup plan if she refused to sign?”
Rachel looked at Vincent, her expression grim.
“Three weeks ago, Ethan quietly applied for a joint high-value term life insurance policy through an offshore broker,” Rachel revealed, sliding a copy of the contract across my bed. “Twenty million dollars on your life, listing himself as the primary beneficiary.”
I looked at the signature line at the bottom of the page. It was my name, written in neat, sweeping cursive.
Except I had never seen this document in my life.
May you like
“He forged my signature,” I whispered.
“He didn't just forge your signature, Lena,” Rachel said softly. “He was preparing to eliminate you once the trust was officially unlocked.”
