Never this precise.
Daniel reached for his phone.
“I need a full financial trace,” he told his lawyer. “Every transaction. Every linked account. Every asset tied to Michael.”
“That could take time,” the lawyer said.
“Do it anyway.”
He hung up, then sat there staring into nothing.
Because deep down, a name was already forming in his mind.
A name he did not want to say out loud.
A name that did not make sense, but somehow did.
His mother.
No.
That was impossible.
She had been kind. Gentle. Loving.
The one person who held the family together.
But then another memory surfaced—small, faint, but there:
Her disapproval when he talked about leaving.
The way she always favored Michael.
The quiet arguments he never fully understood back then.
Daniel shook his head.
“No,” he muttered.
Maybe.
But doubt had already entered.
And once doubt enters, it does not leave easily.
The next morning, he woke early—earlier than usual.
His father was already awake, sitting outside with a cup of tea, watching the sunrise.
“Couldn’t sleep?” the old man asked.
Daniel sat beside him.
“Not really.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
Then Daniel said, “I think there’s more.”
His father did not react immediately.
“More?”
“Michael didn’t do this alone,” Daniel said. “Something pushed him. Guided him.”
His father stared ahead.
“What are you thinking?”
Daniel hesitated.
For the first time since all of this began, he was not sure he wanted to say it.
But he did anyway.
“I think someone helped him from the beginning.”
His father turned slowly.
“Who?”
Daniel exhaled.
“I don’t know yet.”
But that was not entirely true.
Because there was one possibility sitting quietly in the back of his mind.
Waiting.
Watching.
Later that day, the first report came in.
Daniel stood in his study as his lawyer’s voice came through the speaker.
“There’s something you need to see.”
“What is it?”
A pause.
Then:
“Large transfers.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“From where?”
“Not just from your account,” the lawyer continued. “There are additional deposits into your father’s account before your transfers even started.”
Daniel went still.
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