Valenci: Never Lose Me

Chapter Sixteen

"Good morning, Mr. Vasilyev." Rohm's head shoots up from her screen when the smiling receptionist says my name, "Thank you for coming in on such short notice." A shadow of uncertainty crosses my wife's face, but she does her best not to let anything show

"If you'll follow me, Mr. Harris is already waiting for you."

"Lead the way," the receptionist starts walking toward the hallway, and I follow her after another look at Rome, watching my every move from her small cubicle with wary eyes.

Shortly after Rohm left the condo this morning, Duke Harris called me and asked me for a meeting as soon as possible.

He wouldn't disclose on the phone what he wanted, but the way he pushed me to come to his office today made it seem urgent. The receptionist stands before the door, which she opens after a short knock." Mr. Harris, your appointment is here."

She steps back from the door and gestures to me inside, the lawyer sits at his desk looking through a pile of papers when I enter his office.

"Welcome, Mr. Vasilyev." He gets up and wipes his sweaty hand across his pants before stretching it out to me. I purposely ignore him and sit down in one of the stuffed chairs.

"Of course, please take a seat. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."

"You made it sound important is there a problem?"

"No, no, of course not." He clears his throat and adjusts himself in his seat. This man has to be a shitty lawyer if he can't even obscure his nervousness in the slightest.

"You seem like there's a problem." First and foremost, He seems like he can't wait until I leave his office again, but first, he'll have to tell me why I am here in the first place.

"I hear that congratulations are in order. " I arch my brows at him. I highly doubt he received that information from Rohm.

"Congratulations for?"

"Your marriage to Ms. Devlin."

"Mrs. Vasilyev." I like the sound of that, though I like the feel of it even more.

"Um - Yes, of course."

"But you haven't called me here just to tell me that, didn't you?"

"No, I didn't. As you might know, I was in Martina Devlins's service for quite a while, and, um- I overlooked signing over her assets to your father before, well... before she passed."

Before my father killed her.

"What does that have to do with me?"

"There's a trust that would have been theoretically a part of the inheritance. Legally, Miss Devlin had no access to it, and therefore, it couldn't be transferred with the rest of her assets."

"And why are you telling me this? My father -"

"Your wife is the sole beneficiary of this trust, theoretically." he shuffles the papers on his desk from one side to the other. I am about to lose my patience with this man.

"Then why are you telling me this instead of my wife sitting outside this office?"

"Because the trust won't be released to her, it was set up as a kind of dowry. It's in her name, but the money is supposed to go to her husband if she gets married." What kind of bullshit is that? If I didn't already have enough reasons to hate Rohm's mother, I would have now.

She has been struggling for months, those assholes after her, and all the while, she's been sitting on a bunch of money she can't access. I drag my hand across my face and take a deep breath.

"How much money are we talking about?"

"$4 million" $4 million dollars. That's a nice sum of money, if her mother had been smarter and had left the money to her directly, she would have saved her from quite some trouble.

The trouble that she caused her in the first place: "Does my wife know about the trust?"

"As far as I know - no. Though I can't say if her mother told her about it before anyway, I have everything here to unlock the trust and move the money to the bank account you want it transferred to."

With his fingers already hovering above his keyboard, he looks at me expectantly, " I will let you know as soon as I have the bank account information."

"Oh, OK, and when the transaction has been completed, there are a few documents that miss ... your wife has to sign."

"That shouldn't be a problem, seeing that she's already in your office."

"Yeah, sure, so I guess we're done for today." he gives me a wobbly smile as he moves to his feet even now that we're done. Browning still seems nervous as he's trying to dismiss me. I remain seated for a moment longer, watching him.

Something about this guy is bothering me, but I can't put my finger on what it is. I push up from my chair and take a step toward the door, turning back to him once again.

"One more thing... does my father know about the trust?"

"If he does, he also knows he can't access it. He hasn't mentioned it to me." I'll make sure my father can't get his hands on the money if he knows about it or finds out.

I won't allow anyone to take anything from my Wife ever again.

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Whew!!😮‍💨

Me and Rohm Mama gon have to squabble rs.

What yall think? Let me know in the comments.