Frederick continued. “Desmond could freeze your surface accounts using the power of attorney. He could attempt paperwork. He could intimidate vendors and staff. But he cannot sell Morrison Auto Group. He cannot move the protected twenty-three million. He cannot remove you from the founder’s trust.”
Nora closed her eyes.
For the first time since the grocery store, she breathed.
“What can I do?”
Frederick leaned forward. “Legally? A lot. But you need an attorney immediately. Not the company attorney. Not anyone Desmond recommended. Your own.”
Nora already knew who to call.
Her late husband’s old friend, Evelyn Shaw, had once been the toughest corporate litigator in Chicago before semi-retiring to “only take cases that annoyed her enough.” Warren had trusted Evelyn because she charged too much, smiled too little, and had never once confused politeness with weakness.
Evelyn answered on the second ring.
“Nora?”
“Desmond froze my accounts and tried to move twenty-three million dollars.”
There was one second of silence.
Then Evelyn said, “I’ll be at First National in twenty minutes.”
She arrived in eighteen.
Evelyn Shaw walked into the conference room wearing a charcoal suit, red lipstick, and the kind of calm that made nervous men sit straighter. She reviewed the documents without speaking. Nora watched her eyes move line by line, her expression growing colder with every page.
Finally, Evelyn closed the folder.
“Your son has committed financial abuse, attempted fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and possibly forgery depending on these signatures,” she said. “His wife may be implicated if she benefited from or helped pressure you. The attorneys who prepared these documents will have questions to answer. And if he threatened access to your grandchildren to force compliance, that matters too.”
Nora looked down at her hands.
“My grandchildren,” she whispered.
There were three of them.
Olivia, fourteen, who loved old cars and had Warren’s serious eyes. Max, eleven, who collected baseball cards and still called Nora every Sunday when Karen didn’t “forget” to let him. Little June, six, who used to run into Nora’s arms yelling “Nana!” like the whole world had just opened.
Desmond knew exactly where to cut.
