Chapter 6 - Victor’s Offer
Victor asked to meet Ethan at Ashcroft Hall.
Rebecca refused.
Victor then offered her office.
She accepted.
He arrived alone.
No lawyer.
No assistant.
At fifty-two, Victor Ashcroft looked younger in photographs than in person.
Gray had begun at his temples.
The man who had slapped Ethan was gone from his face.
Or hidden.
He sat across from the boy.
“I owe you an apology.”
Ethan stared.
“For hitting me?”
“Yes.”
“Then say it.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“I’m sorry I struck you.”
“Why did you?”
“Because I saw two million dollars destroyed in front of me.”
“So?”
Victor looked down.
“There is no so.”
Ethan had expected excuses.
Their absence unsettled him.
Victor continued.
“The police may charge me with misdemeanor assault. My attorney thinks the video makes that likely.”
“Good.”
Rebecca glanced at Ethan.
Victor almost smiled.
“I probably deserve that.”
Then he placed a financial report on the table.
Ashcroft Holdings.
Debt: sixty-three million dollars.
Cash reserves: low.
Two development projects delayed.
A manufacturing subsidiary operating at a loss.
Rosa frowned.
“You’re broke?”
“No.”
Victor corrected her.
“Leveraged.”
Rebecca said, “We understand the word.”
Victor looked at Ethan.
“The portrait auction was part of a larger sale intended to raise eleven million dollars.”
“To pay debts.”
“To protect loan covenants.”
Ethan remembered the wealthy guests applauding.
Victor continued.
“If lenders determine the estate trust does not legally own collateral we pledged, they can accelerate significant debt.”
“Because you pledged things that weren’t yours.”
“I believed they were.”
“After 2004?”
Victor became silent.
Ethan leaned forward.
“You heard Grandpa say he didn’t trust the will.”
“I heard a sick man questioning documents.”
“You hid the recording.”
“Yes.”
The answer was quiet.
“Why?”
“Because the company employed eighteen hundred people then.”
“So you decided Mom didn’t matter.”
Victor’s expression tightened.
“I decided a woman who had already taken money and signed a release did not outweigh eighteen hundred employees.”
“She didn’t get the settlement money.”
Victor looked surprised.
Rebecca slid the canceled check across.
Victor stared.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Your mother did.”
“I was twelve in 1986.”
“But thirty in 2004.”
“Yes.”
Victor closed his eyes.
He looked genuinely shaken by the check.
Ethan almost hated that.
Villains were easier when they smiled.
Victor said, “I can make an offer.”
Rebecca immediately interrupted.
“Through counsel.”
“I’m not offering legal settlement terms.”
He looked at Ethan.
“I will publicly acknowledge that Margaret was Henry’s daughter.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“That’s a fact.”
“I will also create a five-million-dollar irrevocable trust for you.”
Rosa inhaled.
Victor continued.
“Education. Housing. Medical costs. Full distribution at thirty.”
Rebecca said nothing.
Ethan did.
“And I stop the case.”
“Yes.”
“And the estate stays yours.”
“The existing trust remains intact.”
“And Mom stays erased.”
“No. I’ll restore her portrait to Ashcroft Hall.”
Ethan stared at him.
“You really think that’s enough.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“I think five million dollars changes a child’s life.”
“So does the truth.”
“Truth doesn’t pay your guardian’s rent.”
Rosa stood.
“Careful.”
Victor looked at her.
“I know your catering company lost two contracts after the auction.”
Rosa went still.
Ethan turned.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t want you worrying.”
Victor continued.
“The press is outside your building. People are calling you opportunists. This gets worse.”
Rebecca’s voice sharpened.
“Are you threatening them?”
“No.”
Victor looked at Ethan.
“I’m warning him.”
Ethan remembered his mother.
Some houses are built to keep people out.
Victor was offering him a comfortable room inside the gate.
As long as he stopped asking who built it.
“No.”
Victor sighed.
“Think.”
“I did.”
“Ethan—”
“My mother lived her whole life being told to go away.”
Victor stared.
“I’m not taking money to do it again.”
Victor gathered his papers.
At the door, he stopped.
“The company may not survive a full title challenge.”
Ethan said nothing.
Victor looked back.
“When people lose jobs, remember this was not only about paintings.”
He left.
For the first time, Ethan felt something worse than anger.
Responsibility.
That evening, Rebecca received records from the Ashcroft Foundation.
The three hundred thousand dollars missing in 1986 had indeed gone to Wexler Family Ventures.
Authorized by Eleanor.
But another signature appeared.
Silas Grady.
Margaret’s supposed independent lawyer.
Rebecca stared at it.
“The attorney who advised Margaret to sign the release helped move the money they blamed her for stealing.”
Rosa whispered, “Can you prove they threatened her?”
“Not yet.”
Then Ethan found a name in Margaret’s old papers.
Marion Pike.
Bookkeeper.
Beside the name Margaret had written:
She knows I didn’t take it.
Rebecca searched.
Marion Pike was still alive.
Seventy-eight.
Living in New Jersey.
The next morning she answered her phone.
Rebecca introduced herself.
There was silence.
Then Rebecca said Margaret’s name.
May you like
Marion began crying.
“I wondered when somebody would finally ask.”
