Nathan looked unsurprised.
“Richard has been attempting to locate this property for years.”
The intercom sounded again.
Richard leaned toward the camera.
“Emma, open this gate. We need to discuss what you’ve done.”
What she had done.
Not what he had done.
Emma pressed the intercom button.
“How did you know I was here?”
Richard’s eyes narrowed.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Open the gate.”
Emma looked at Nathan.
“Legally, do I have to let them in?”
“No.”
She released the button.
For several seconds, she considered leaving them outside. But Daniel’s letter had said they would come. Perhaps this confrontation was part of what he intended her to face.
Emma opened the gate.
The family entered the mansion without greeting her.
Vanessa stared at the chandelier.
Tyler turned slowly, filming the ocean view until Nathan ordered him to put his phone away.
Aunt Laura touched the marble fireplace.
“This can’t belong to Emma,” she whispered.
Richard stopped in the center of the room.
“Where are the documents?”
Emma folded her arms.
“You threw me out less than twelve hours ago.”
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“It has everything to do with this.”
Richard approached her.
“My father was not mentally competent before he died. If he signed something, he was manipulated.”
Nathan stepped between them.
“Daniel underwent three independent competency evaluations. Each confirmed that he understood his decisions.”
Richard glared at him.
“You helped him hide assets from his family.”
“I helped him protect assets from someone who had already stolen from one family member.”
Silence fell.
Emma looked from Nathan to Richard.
“Who did he steal from?”
Richard’s face turned pale.
Nathan did not answer.
Instead, he looked at Emma.
“That truth is contained in the letters.”
Richard lunged toward the library.
Rebecca blocked his path.
“You are trespassing in a restricted area.”
“This was my father’s property!”
“No,” Emma said.
Her voice surprised everyone, including herself.
She walked to the front door and opened it.
“This is my property.”
Richard stared at her.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
Emma pointed outside.
“But I know what you did last night. You watched me leave with nowhere to sleep. None of you called. None of you asked whether I was safe.”
Vanessa looked away.
Emma continued, “You don’t get to become my family again because the house is worth thirty million dollars.”
Richard stepped closer and lowered his voice.
“If you open those letters, you will destroy what remains of this family.”
Emma held his gaze.
“Then maybe the letters aren’t the thing that destroyed it.”
One by one, they left.
Richard remained at the door.
Before crossing the threshold, he looked back.
“You think Daniel saved you?”
Emma said nothing.
Her father’s mouth tightened.
“He used you.”
Then he walked away.
Emma closed the door.
That evening, she returned to the library and opened Envelope One.
Inside was a list of dates.
School trips she had been forced to miss.
Music lessons Richard canceled.
A summer science program she had won but never attended.
Beside each event was an amount of money.
At the bottom, Daniel had written:
These opportunities were paid for. Your father kept the money and told you we could not afford them.
Emma turned the page.
There were dozens more.
And beneath them, in Daniel’s handwriting, were six words:
This was how the theft began.
PART 3 — THE ACCOUNT IN HER NAME
Emma spent the night in a bedroom larger than the entire first apartment she had rented after college.
She still barely slept.
Every time she closed her eyes, numbers appeared.