Chapter 5 - Amendment Fourteen
Amendment Fourteen wasn't a secret inheritance document.
It was a board-approved amendment to the company's shareholder agreement, signed six years earlier.
I remembered the meeting vaguely.
Grandmother had been recovering from surgery, and Dad had insisted the paperwork was routine.
It wasn't.
The amendment required heightened approval for certain transactions involving family-controlled entities.
It also barred any officer from using company funds to finance a related party's personal expenses without documented authorization.
"Why would Grandmother hide this?" I asked Samuel.
"She didn't," he said.
"She asked your father to circulate it."
"Did he?"
Samuel's silence answered me.
When Nina reviewed the accounting summaries, she found management fees paid to an unfamiliar company.
Bali Vista Holdings.
The name made my stomach drop.
"Vanessa?" Daniel asked.
"Maybe," I said.
"But a name isn't proof."
I refused to turn a coincidence into an accusation.
Nina asked the directors for proper financial disclosures and a legal hold on relevant records.
That evening, Vanessa called from a beachside villa.
"You made Dad look like a monster," she said without greeting me.
"I didn't write his letter."
"Daniel humiliated him."
"Daniel read what Dad voluntarily sent him."
She laughed bitterly.
"You think you're so special because Grandma liked you."
I stared at the wedding flowers fading on the table.
"You could have attended my wedding."
"And miss Bali?"
She made a disgusted sound.
"Don't flatter yourself."
For a moment, I had nothing to say.
Then she added something strange.
"Grandma promised I'd never have to worry about money again."
"What do you mean?"
"Forget it."
She ended the call.
An hour later, Samuel sent the estate's asset schedule.
There was no special gift to Vanessa beyond property already disclosed.
But one line in an accounting ledger showed a loan made to a company controlled by my sister.
The balance was more than two million dollars.
The signature authorizing it appeared to be Grandmother's.
The date was six days after she had entered hospice.
I had been sitting beside her bed that day.
May you like
Her hands had been too weak to hold a pen.
