My parents charged me $1,950 a month to live in my own grandfather’s house, but when Grandpa discovered I had paid them $70,200, he demanded to know who had given them permission.

Emma looked down at her father and stepmother, her gaze as sharp and cold as a surgeon's scalpel. "That is the second part of the audit, Grandpa. The part that covers the commercial properties downtown." Richard’s face turned the color of ash. He lunged forward again, this time aiming directly for the papers in Walter’s hands, but Grandpa’s longtime personal bodyguard, standing silently in the shadows near the pantry doors, moved with lightning speed, grabbing Richard by the shoulder and pinning him back against the wall with effortless strength. "Get your hands off me!" Richard thrashed, his voice frantic and high-pitched. "You can't look at those! Those are corporate assets! They have nothing to do with Emma!" "They have everything to do with Emma," Walter said, his voice deadly calm as he pulled the first page of the commercial asset report from the folder. He scanned the document, his eyes widening as he read the corporate registry names. "Good God in heaven... Richard, you transferred the title of the historic downtown commercial plaza—the one I specifically dedicated to Emma's educational trust fund on her tenth birthday—into a shell corporation owned entirely by you and Elaine." "It was a corporate restructuring!" Richard screamed, his face pressed against the mahogany wall. "To protect the assets from liability! Standard asset protection strategy!" "It's grand larceny," Emma corrected him quietly, pulling a certified copy of the state filing from her bag. "The restructuring was executed using a forged signature on the power of attorney document while Grandpa was in a medically induced coma following his bypass surgery. I have the handwriting analysis right here, certified by an independent forensics lab."