CHAPTER 4: The Signature She Could Not Steal

Celeste recovered quickly because predators often do.
“That paper means nothing inside this house,” she said.
Lena looked around the foyer, at the polished marble, the balcony rail, the portraits Celeste had moved to make room for herself.
“That is the problem,” Lena said. “You thought the house was the power.”
She turned one page in the folder.
“It never was.”
Charles had built Vistion Hall after the foundation was already worth more than the property. The house was only a symbol. The voting shares, donor accounts, medical directives, and estate controls were held somewhere else entirely.
In a foundation charter Celeste had never understood.
Lena held up the certificate bearing the old seal.
“Dad named me emergency chair of the foundation three years ago. He filed it after his stroke scare. You erased the copy in this house, but you could not erase the court copy.”
Mason looked at Celeste.
Celeste looked at Charles.
Charles looked at his daughter with a tired pride that nearly broke her.
Lena swallowed it down.
There would be time to cry later.
Now, there was work.