Grandpa left me $5 million, so my estranged parents sued me, claiming he was “mentally unfit.” In court, my dad whispered, “You really thought you’d get away with it?” I stayed silent. Then, Judge Reyes looked at me and froze. “Wait…Are you Ethan Carter?” he asked. My parents’ smug smiles vanished instantly when the judge stood up and revealed the terrifying truth about how he knew me…

Glenn nodded, a grim expression crossing his face. “He worried about you. About what would happen when he was gone. He wanted to ensure you had a future that was… yours. Independent.”

He cracked the wax seal. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet room.

“The estate has been divided,” Glenn began, reading from the document. “To his son, Mark Ashford, and his daughter-in-law, Diana Ashford, he leaves the family struggle—specifically, the debts incurred by the mismanagement of the Ashford subsidiary companies they oversaw.”

I blinked. Debt?

“And,” Glenn continued, looking directly at me, “to his grandson, Ethan Ashford, he leaves the remainder of his liquid assets, his private property, and his investment portfolio. Totaling approximately five million dollars.”

The room spun. The air left my lungs.

Five million.

It was a number that didn’t make sense. It was enough to disappear. Enough to start a publishing house, or travel the world, or just buy a cabin in the woods and never hear my mother’s criticism again.

“I…I don’t understand,” I stammered.

“He wanted you to be free, Ethan,” Glenn said gently.