If he didn’t pay, Citadel Apex wouldn’t just seize the Ojai property. They would trigger a cross-collateralization clause—seizing everything tied to his name. The mansion. The cars. Walsh Holdings. Every account. Everything.
They were going to wipe him out.
I leaned back in my chair, the logic clicking into place with horrifying precision.
Greg didn’t need five hundred grand as a bridge loan. He needed it as a desperate good-faith payment to hold off the wolves. And when I said no, he activated his contingency plan.
He wasn’t suing me to get control of my retirement fund.
He was suing me because he was bankrupt.
He was suing me because he needed my estate.
He needed to liquidate everything I owned to save his own skin.
A new question formed in my mind—cold and sharp.
If Greg was broke—if he couldn’t pay contractors and couldn’t meet a capital call—where did he get money to launch this conservatorship attack?
Lawsuits aren’t cheap. Lawyers demand retainers. Experts demand cash. Lim wouldn’t commit perjury for free.
So where did the money come from?
My mind flashed back to that Sunday dinner.
Melissa talking about her charity gala.
Her foundation.
The Isabelle Price Foundation.
When Isabelle died, I took a portion of the money from the sale of our Connecticut home—several million dollars—and placed it into a charitable trust. Its mission was to fund early-stage cancer research, the kind that might have saved her. I named it for her—Isabelle Price Foundation—because I couldn’t bear the idea of her name fading into a gravestone.
I made Melissa managing director.
I thought giving her purpose would tether her to her mother’s memory.
I was the founder, with oversight rights.
But I never exercised them.
Because it was Isabelle’s name.
Because it was my daughter.
Because I trusted her.
I picked up the phone and called the private bank in Boston that managed the foundation’s assets.
A banker I hadn’t spoken to in years answered, voice warm with surprise.
“Mr. Price, what a pleasure. We usually only hear from Melissa.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said, voice cold.
“I’m invoking founder’s rights,” I continued. “I need a full detailed statement of all expenditures and transfers for the past twelve months. I need it in five minutes. Secure email.”
“Sir,” he hesitated, “that may take time—”
“Five minutes,” I repeated, and hung up.
My secure inbox chimed three minutes later.
The PDF was attached.
I opened it.
My hands were perfectly still.
The first line hit me like a punch.
Total asset value: $412,000.
It had been well over three million.
I scrolled, my blood turning to ice.
The foundation was hemorrhaging money.
There were the small donations I expected—five thousand to a research lab, ten thousand to hospice support, the kind of giving Isabelle would have approved of.
And then there were the other charges.
Administrative fees.
Consulting fees.
Event planning services.
Massive.
$150,000 transfer two months ago. Recipient: Walsh Holdings GP.
$80,000 for “Gala Planning Services.” Vendor: LA Premier Events LLC.
I ran the vendor name.
Shell company. Registered three months ago. P.O. box. Sole proprietor: Gregory Walsh.
He was paying himself eighty thousand dollars to plan his own party.
But the most devastating evidence wasn’t even in the line items.
It was in the proof of payment.
The bank provided scanned checks for transactions over twenty thousand. I clicked the links.
The check for $150,000 to Walsh Holdings.
The check for $80,000 to LA Premier Events.
I stared at the signature line.
The elegant looping handwriting authorizing the transfers.
Melissa Walsh.
My daughter’s signature.
Clear as day.
I closed my eyes.
I had prepared myself for Greg’s corruption. Snakes bite. That’s what they do.
I had even prepared myself—somewhere in my softest, stupidest place—to find that Melissa was weak, manipulated, bullied into it.
But this wasn’t weakness.
This was partnership.
Complicity.
She had signed those checks.
She had looted her mother’s legacy.
She had stolen from cancer research to fund her husband’s collapsing fantasy—and to finance my legal execution.
I looked at the dates.
First major transfer six weeks ago.
Second three weeks ago.
This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment panic. This was a pipeline. Sustained.
This was my daughter using her mother’s name as a weapon against her father.
I stared at Melissa’s signature until something in me went cold and clean.
The grief didn’t fade.
It evaporated.
It left behind clarity.
The scalpel was back in surgery.
I picked up the secure line. Avery answered on the first ring.
“Nate,” she said, “I’m already digging into the law firm. They’re bottom feeders, but—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut her off.