Dad knew I had never willingly signed away the shares.
They were guilty.
But not of everything Grant claimed.
They had agreed to let Grant “fix” the documentation rather than contact me.
Why?
Pride.
Fear.
And because contacting the daughter they disowned meant admitting what they had done.
Then came the final discovery.
Dad’s cardiac arrest hadn’t happened randomly.
He collapsed during an argument with Grant.
A neighbor’s doorbell camera showed Grant leaving my parents’ house eight minutes before the 911 call.
Mom found Dad on the kitchen floor minutes later.
When I confronted Grant, he laughed.
We were in the agency conference room.
My attorney sat beside me.
Silas waited outside.
“You think Nana made you some kind of hero?” Grant said.
“No.”
“You weren’t here, Colleen. You got to leave.”
I almost couldn’t believe him.
“Leave?”
“You escaped all of it. Dad’s expectations. Mom’s control. This business. Everything landed on me.”
“So you stole from them?”
“I took what I was owed.”
“Then why come to me?”
His smile vanished.
Because now we had reached the part he hadn’t planned for me to understand.
The agency wasn’t beyond saving.
Its property alone was worth more than its debts.
