Chapter 4 - The Forms Under the Trustee Folder
Dominic began searching the meeting room piece by piece.
He did not overturn the table or bark useless orders. He searched the way he handled old acquisitions and dirty negotiations—quietly, methodically, assuming the crucial thing would be tucked somewhere almost respectable.
He started with the trustee folders.
At first, they contained exactly what they should have: financial summaries, preservation budgets, estate notes, and the unsigned stewardship revision Dominic planned to present the following morning.
But beneath Elena’s folder sat a second stack.
It had been placed there neatly, as if it belonged.
Dominic pulled it free.
The first page was a travel-consent form for Milo, authorizing interstate travel with his father.
The signature line already bore Elena’s name.
Elena stared at it in horror.
“I didn’t sign that.”
Dominic flipped to the next sheet. It was a temporary guardianship petition prepared for emergency filing. The language was chilling in its polish: concerns regarding maternal instability, emotional fatigue, inconsistent judgment, possible inability to provide a secure environment for a minor child.
The next pages were even worse.
Copies of Elena’s old counseling summaries from the year after Milo’s birth.
A physician’s note about postpartum anxiety.
A list of her prescribed sleep aids from two years earlier.
Every document was real.
Every document was weaponized.
Dominic did not need to look at Gavin to know who had assembled them.
Trent shifted in his chair. “This is getting blown out of proportion.”
Dominic ignored him and kept reading.
At the back of the file was a draft email from a family-law firm—not yet sent, but ready. It stated that because of an “escalating domestic incident” and concerns about Elena’s condition, Gavin would be removing the child from the residence for his immediate safety.
Dominic lowered the pages.
Now the timing made sickening sense.
The private meeting had established that Elena would gain more institutional power the next morning. Gavin had responded by preparing to strip her of the one thing he knew would break her fastest—Milo.
Elena stared at the pages as if they might devour her.
“He told me if I kept resisting,” she whispered, “he would make everyone think I was too unstable to raise Milo.”
Dominic looked at her sharply. “How long has he been saying that?”
She hesitated.
“That was the beginning,” she said. “Before the shouting. Before the grabbing. Before today.”
Milo pressed closer into Dominic’s chest.
“Daddy told Trent we’d go in the black car,” he whispered. “He said I’d sleep someplace else till Mommy behaved.”
The child’s exactness turned every adult in the room colder.
This had not been an empty threat.
A route had been planned. A bag had been packed. Forms had been forged. Trent had known his role. Milo had heard enough to become a problem. That was why Gavin told Trent to keep him quiet.
Dominic set the forged papers aside very carefully.
Then he noticed one more thing.
A key was missing from Elena’s trustee ring—the small brass archive key her mother had once used to open the protected records drawer in the collection room.
He looked at the broken display shelves visible through the open party-room door.
Then back at Gavin.
May you like
“You weren’t only after Milo,” Dominic said.
And Gavin’s silence told him that whatever the second target was, it mattered just as much.
