Chapter 5 - Unlocking The Mystery Hidden Inside The Legal Folder
Ainsley did not take the thick property-document folder from Wesley’s outstretched hand. She stared at it as if it were a venomous snake, her breathing growing rapid and shallow. The opulent fur-lined coat she wore suddenly seemed like a heavy, suffocating weight.
"You're lying," Ainsley whispered, her voice stripped of its arrogant shrillness. "Grandmother said the trust was locked in probate, and you were just managing the liquid assets."
"Grandmother lied," Wesley stated, tossing the folder onto the entryway table. It hit the wood with a heavy, definitive thud. "She lied to you so you wouldn't panic, and she lied to me to keep me paying. Open it, Ainsley. Read the audit. It’s all there in black and white."
Ainsley reached out with a trembling hand and flipped open the heavy cardboard cover. Her eyes frantically scanned the top document—a certified financial audit stamped by an independent firm. The numbers were irrefutable. Zero balance in the family trust. Zero equity in the Charleston estate, which was revealed to be heavily mortgaged against Wesley’s own medical practice.
"She took out a second mortgage?" Ainsley gasped, her eyes widening in horror as she read the next page. "She forged your signature as a guarantor?"
"No," Wesley corrected quietly. "She guilted me into signing it the week after Claire died. I was too consumed by grief to read the fine print. I just wanted her to stop crying. That was my mistake. But the mistake ends today."
Ainsley looked up, her expression morphing from shock into a desperate, frantic calculation. "Wesley, if this is true, I have no money. My gallery is failing. My rent is due in a week. If you cut us off, I lose my apartment. I lose everything."
"You are thirty-two years old, Ainsley," Wesley said, his voice entirely devoid of sympathy. "You have a master's degree. You can get a job. Millions of people pay their own rent every month. You are just going to have to become one of them."
"You can't do this to me over a dinner invitation!" she cried, stepping closer, grabbing the sleeve of his wool sweater. "I'll make them move the tables! I'll put Luna right next to the mayor! I don't care! Just turn the credit cards back on!"
Wesley gently but firmly detached her hand from his sweater. "This isn't just about the dinner, Ainsley. It's about a lifetime of disrespect. It's about you using my grief as an ATM while treating my child like a diseased pariah. The dinner was just the catalyst."
He walked over to the front door and pulled it open, the howling wind immediately rushing back into the hallway, swirling snow across the threshold.
"Leave, Ainsley," Wesley commanded softly. "The roads are getting worse. You should start driving back to Charleston before you get snowed in."
"Grandmother is going to destroy you for this," Ainsley threatened, her tears of panic freezing on her cheeks as she backed toward the door. "She will ruin your reputation. She will drag you through court."
"Let her try," Wesley replied calmly. "I have the receipts. I have the audit. And unlike her, I actually have the money to hire good lawyers. Have a safe drive."
Ainsley practically stumbled out the door, clutching her fur coat tightly around herself. Wesley watched her trudge through the deep snow to her leased luxury SUV before he firmly shut the door and locked the deadbolt.
He stood in the quiet hallway for a moment, letting the adrenaline bleed out of his system. The house was quiet again. He walked back toward the kitchen, passing the living room door.
He peaked inside. Luna was still happily situated on the rug, her drawing notebook open in front of her. She had paused her documentary and was carefully drawing a highly intricate snowflake.
"Is everything okay, Dad?" Luna asked, not looking away from her paper. "The door sounded angry."
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"Everything is perfectly fine, bug," Wesley said, a warm, genuine smile breaking across his face. "Just a cold breeze passing through. Let's go eat some mac and cheese."
He had won the first battle. But as he looked at his phone flashing with an incoming call from Charleston, he knew the war was far from over.
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