He did as I asked and pulled up a folder, sharing the screen to the projector in the room. There were multitudes of documents spanning the years I was with her with multiple statements and agreements.

The first was a no contact request due to grieving the loss of my mother, Maria. It clearly stated I was unable to coherently think or communicate while I dealt with the tragedy of her passing after years of watching her slowly die. I never wrote that, but my signature was expertly forged with the guardian signature beneath mine.

“Evans...I didn’t write these.”

He didn’t show signs of any emotion or thought. His game face was on. “These were produced by a lawyer from within the company. He claimed to have met with you over each and every letter, statement, or agreement that was relayed to us. Multiple have corroborated that story.”

From the texts to the vague comments made by everyone, this felt like it made sense.

Feeling a bit chaotic, I pulled out my phone.

Here goes nothing.

Me: we have rats in the ranks and they’ve been crawling around for years. Need help.

I shot off the text wondering what my life would turn into after it went out.

Feeling an inch of relief from the text, I looked out at everyone spread out around me, waiting for either instruction or what I would say next. “Then we have rats that need to be trapped. These,” I motioned to the screen and stood, “are not mine. I’ve never seen them. The options are that I was either coerced under the influence to sign these or they’ve been forged. Neither are great options, but whatever you all agreed to within some of these is null and void and I want Sylvia to answer for her actions.”

The men looked around, wondering what scheme we’d been pulled into. For all we knew, Sylvia could have signed the company away from underneath me. The money hungry bitch who loathed my mother for building herself up from the dirt had tricks at play.

I stood near the projection, tapping my foot as I looked through the letters and contracts sent using my name. Some approved monetary requests for her. Others were contracts signed for benefits that lasted past her guardianship when I turned eighteen. She’d planned and plotted against me while I was under her care.

But why?

Did she really hate my mother that much? Mom never told me a lot about her family, so much so that I never knew them personally or interacted outside of an occasional needed association. Whatever my remaining family had planned, it was all in the name of undermining my mother’s legacy.