“Over eight hundred thousand dollars,” Sophia said. “Just in the last eighteen months.”

My breath caught in my throat.

Eight hundred thousand dollars.

That was almost the exact amount Daniel had claimed his business lost due to “market downturns” when he asked me to sign over my inheritance.

He hadn’t lost the money.

He had simply replaced the company’s legitimate income with cash, took my inheritance to pay off the business debts, and pocketed the cash for himself and his parents.

It was a systematic, deliberate stripping of my assets.

“And Margaret?” I asked. “Did she know?”

“She knew,” Sophia said. “She was the one who picked out the apartment furnishings. She went with Daniel to the gallery to buy the art. She told him to make sure the lease was in my name so it couldn’t be linked to the Carter family if things went bad.”

The enabler mother.

She had played the role of the worried, elegant matriarch while actively helping her son hide his mistress and his stolen money.

“I have a document for you,” I said, pulling out my phone.