Chapter 6 - The Secret Account
Vanessa claimed she knew nothing about the account.
For once, I believed her.
Her name had been added as a beneficiary and secondary signer, but transaction records showed almost all activity came from Dad.
The money funded investments.
Club expenses.
Luxury purchases.
And repeated transfers to a company I had never heard of.
RB Heritage Partners.
RB.
Richard Bennett.
My father had been taking money I believed was keeping a roof over my parents’ heads and using it to build his own private investment fund.
I should have been furious.
Instead, I felt embarrassed.
How had I missed it?
Because I never checked.
Dad said he needed money.
I sent it.
That had been our relationship.
Friday marked one week since the dinner.
One glass of water had exposed an entire ecosystem of lies.
Then Melissa discovered that RB Heritage Partners owned something surprising.
A warehouse.
My first warehouse.
The building where I had started my company.
I had rented it years earlier from an investment company.
Eventually, I moved operations.
I never knew Dad had purchased the property through an LLC.
Why?
The answer arrived in another document.
He intended to use the warehouse as evidence that he had financially supported my company from the beginning.
Except he bought it three years after I moved out.
The dates destroyed the story.
But the intention was clear.
My father wanted a piece of my success badly enough to rewrite history.
I finally agreed to meet him.
Neutral location.
Attorneys present.
Dad arrived wearing the same expression he used when I was sixteen and had dented his car.
“You’ve taken this too far.”
Those were his first words.
Not hello.
Not sorry.
“You forged my signature.”
“I protected this family.”
“You tried to steal twenty-five percent of my company.”
“I gave you everything.”
Melissa placed a hand lightly on my arm, reminding me to stay calm.
Dad leaned forward.
“That company would never exist without me.”
“How?”
“I raised you.”
I stared at him.
“That doesn’t make you a shareholder.”
His face reddened.
“You think that nurse built you?”
There it was.
Clara.
Always Clara.
“She’s my wife.”
“She’s temporary.”
I stood.
The meeting was over.
Dad realized his mistake immediately.
“Arthur.”
I looked down at him.
“Clara has never asked me to pay a single bill for her family. She never asked for a car. Never asked for rent. Never asked for a vacation.”
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves she wanted me, Dad.”
He went silent.
“And I think that’s why you hate her.”
I left.
Outside, rain had begun falling.
Melissa followed.
“You okay?”
“No.”
But I was getting there.
That night, I went home and finished assembling our daughter’s crib.
Clara sat in the rocking chair watching.
“You put that rail backward.”
“I’m a CEO.”
“You’re a CEO who put the rail backward.”
I looked at the instructions.
She was right.
We laughed.
It was the most ordinary evening imaginable.
And it felt extraordinary.
Then the doorbell rang.
Vanessa stood outside again.
This time she wasn’t crying.
She looked terrified.
“Arthur, Dad’s missing.”
I opened the door.
“What?”
“He left Mom a note.”
“What did it say?”
Vanessa handed me a photograph.
Dad’s handwriting.
I’M GOING TO FIX WHAT ARTHUR BROKE.
I looked at Vanessa.
“Where would he go?”
“I don’t know.”
My phone buzzed.
Company security.
Motion detected.
Location:
OLD BENNETT LOGISTICS WAREHOUSE.
The warehouse owned by RB Heritage Partners.
Dad wasn’t missing.
May you like
He was inside the building where my company had begun.
And according to the security alert, he wasn’t alone.
