Rebuilding the Estate
Chapter 10 - Rebuilding the Estate
Teresa Reyes's team, working alongside the probate court's formal review, spent the following months untangling Victor's considerable financial damage to the Thornton estate, a process that revealed the full, devastating scope of what eight years of unchecked control had actually cost.
"The total diversion from the estate's accounts exceeds three point four million dollars," Teresa reported, presenting the final audit's findings. "The mansion itself was leveraged to within ninety percent of its assessed value. If Margaret had actually signed that document at the wedding, Victor would have been able to liquidate the property immediately, settle his personal debts, and leave his own mother effectively homeless."
Claire absorbed that number with a specific, cold fury she'd been carrying since the night of the wedding, understanding now exactly how close her intervention had come to arriving too late.
"I want everything restored," she said. "The mansion's title cleared, the unauthorized liens removed, and whatever remains of the diverted funds recovered through the criminal proceedings."
"That process will take considerable time," Teresa warned. "Recovered assets from fraud cases rarely return quickly or completely. I want you prepared for the possibility that some of the damage may be permanently irreversible."
Claire accepted that reality, though she committed, alongside Margaret, to rebuilding the estate's financial foundation as thoroughly as possible, the two women working together with a specific, growing closeness that neither had anticipated developing this quickly.
"I keep marveling at how naturally you've stepped into this family," Margaret told Claire, during one of their regular conversations at the mansion. "Edward would have been enormously proud of how you've handled all of this."
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"I don't think I've stepped into anything," Claire said. "I think I've simply been given the chance to protect something my father built and nearly lost to his own son's greed. That's not stepping in. That's simply doing what's right."
Margaret smiled, pride evident on her face. "That's exactly the kind of thing Edward would have said. You're more like him than you probably realize."
