Nathan's Inheritance
Chapter 12 - Nathan's Inheritance
Corinne Ashby, the estate attorney overseeing Harold Reeves's will, contacted Nathan formally three weeks after Victor's sentencing, requesting a meeting to finalize the firstborn provision's application now that both the DNA results and hospital birth records had been fully reviewed.
"The hospital records confirm you were born eleven minutes before Victor," Corinne told him, presenting the documentation carefully. "Under your father's will, that makes you the legal firstborn heir, entitled to controlling interest in Reeves Construction and its considerable associated assets."
Nathan sat with the number Corinne eventually shared, a company worth considerably more than he'd ever imagined, an inheritance that would transform his entire life overnight if he chose to accept it fully.
"I don't know if I want it," he admitted. "Not because of the money itself. Because of everything it represents. My brother tried to kill me twice over this exact inheritance. I'm not certain I want to build my life around the thing that nearly ended it."
"That's an entirely reasonable hesitation," Corinne said. "I want you to know you have options. You could accept the inheritance and restructure the company entirely, distancing it from Victor's legacy. You could establish trusts directing the majority of the wealth toward causes you actually care about. Or you could decline the inheritance formally, though I'd encourage you to consider that decision carefully, given how much good the resources could do if directed thoughtfully."
Nathan thought of Frank, of the considerable safety violations Sarah's investigation had uncovered across multiple Reeves Construction sites during her broader review, corners cut for years under Victor's cost-conscious leadership, violations that had nearly cost Frank his life and had likely endangered countless other workers over the years.
"I want to accept it," he said slowly, "but I want to use it to fix exactly what Victor broke. Every unsafe site. Every corner he cut to protect his own profit margins. I want this company to actually deserve the name it carries, going forward."
Corinne smiled, something genuinely warm crossing her professional composure. "I think your father would have been proud to hear you say that. I read his sealed letter more than once, working on this case. I believe that's precisely the outcome he was hoping to eventually make possible, however delayed and painful the path actually turned out to be."
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Nathan accepted the inheritance formally the following month, immediately commissioning a comprehensive safety review across every Reeves Construction site nationwide, funded directly from his own newly acquired resources rather than waiting for the company's existing, considerably compromised budget process.
Frank, offered a senior safety oversight position given his decades of firsthand experience and his direct knowledge of exactly where corners had been cut, accepted immediately, the two men building something considerably more meaningful together than either had anticipated when Nathan first pulled him off that collapsing platform.
