The footage began with my empty living room, sunlight crossing the floor. Then Nathan and Carol walked into frame, and Carol was holding the same realtor folder she had handed me an hour ago. What I heard next made my stomach drop. “Once her name comes off the deed,” Carol said, “the house is fully yours, and she can’t claim a thing.” Nathan nodded. “She trusts me. She’ll sign whatever I put in front of her. She thinks the second page is just insurance paperwork.”

I gripped the edge of the desk. The man beside me said nothing, only watched my face as the recording continued. On screen, Carol laughed softly and slid a document across my own coffee table. “Your father would be proud,” she said. “You finally learned to protect what’s ours.” Nathan glanced toward the hallway, toward the exact spot where I stood every morning, and said the sentence that turned my blood cold. “She won’t figure it out. She never reads the fine print. By the time she does, it’ll already be filed.”