Chapter 8
Leander’s business advisers wanted the investigation kept inside the household.
The children were safe.
Melisande was gone.
Cancel the wedding.
Remove her access.
Let the trust company know enough to prevent residential placement.
Then stop.
Grant disagreed.
“We have potential misuse of trust funds, forged or misleading submissions if any exist, unauthorized access to household systems, and possible conflicts connected to the property.”
Leander looked at him.
“How broad?”
“Broad enough that we stop choosing which facts we’re comfortable finding.”
That meant opening the children’s trust reimbursements.
Family-office records.
Household security logs.
Payments to consultants.
Real-estate communications.
Leander’s own companies where family-office expenses overlapped.
His advisers objected immediately.
Years of personal security costs had been allocated across business entities.
Family employees sometimes performed company work and household work.
Consultants were not always documented properly.
Nobody suspected catastrophic fraud.
Plenty could be embarrassing.
One executive told him:
“You’re about to let outsiders audit half your private life because your fiancée lost her temper on a staircase.”
Leander looked at him.
“No.”
The man stopped.
“I’m doing it because my son says it happened before, my daughter was almost hurt, and records were being built around both children without my knowledge.”
Grant placed the authorization in front of him.
Once independent investigators received the files, Leander could not realistically control where required findings went.
The review could damage him too.
Leander signed.
No carve-out protecting his companies.
No agreement that unrelated improper expenses would remain private.
He also asked the children’s trustee to appoint an independent beneficiary advocate for Bastian and Ophelia.
Not Leander.
Not Melisande.
Someone whose only job was protecting the children’s interests.
That decision mattered even more.
It meant Leander was voluntarily giving another adult authority to challenge him.
Grant looked surprised.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“You hate being challenged.”
“I’m starting to see the cost of that.”
The review began.
Within a week, two family-office expense policies were changed.
Leander reimbursed mixed personal-business costs.
One consultant contract was terminated.
Then investigators found a file Melisande had submitted to the children’s trust.
It requested preapproval for six months of residential tuition at Wycliffe Academy.
Attached was a parental-support letter.
Signed:
May you like
Leander Royce.
Leander had never seen it.
