I stood so abruptly my chair scraped the tile.

My father had lied to me, hidden my inheritance, and now needed my signature. But apparently, someone had already tried to take control of everything from him.

“Who filed this?” I asked.

The clerk pointed to the petitioner’s name.

Rachel Mercer.
My father’s new wife.

My father started talking fast, tripping over his words. “Do not talk to Rachel. Do you hear me? She’s the reason this is happening. She found out about the land, the mineral survey, everything. She’s been trying to put me under conservatorship and move everything into trusts for her kids.”

I stepped into the hallway, my heart pounding so loudly I could barely hear him.

“You expect me to believe you now?”

“No,” he said. “I expect you to believe the part where we’re both about to lose everything.”

“Why would I care?”

He let out a bitter laugh. “Because if Rachel closes this sale before the court hearing, your half gets pulled into fraud litigation, and the buyers will freeze the entire estate. You won’t just lose the money. You’ll spend years proving you didn’t help me hide it.”

That stopped me.

He sensed it and pressed harder. “Meet me at the old property office on Archer Street. Bring the file. One hour. If Rachel gets there first, neither of us walks away clean.”

I should have hung up.

Instead, thirty minutes later, I was climbing the cracked stairs of a half-empty office building with my grandfather’s file under my arm, already knowing I’d made a terrible mistake.

Because my father’s truck was outside.

And so was a police cruiser.

The moment I reached the third-floor landing, my father yanked open the office door and pulled me inside.

“Keep moving,” he hissed.

I pulled free. “Don’t touch me.”