had no immediate answer.
The following morning, Sabrina tried calling me.
I didn’t answer.
She sent a photograph of a bouquet of pink tulips with a message saying she hoped we could resolve everything privately and avoid embarrassing the family.
I forwarded the message to Nina.
Nina advised me not to negotiate directly.
Over the next several weeks, investigators reconstructed what had happened.
Sabrina’s event-planning company was in serious financial trouble.
She had accumulated debts through extravagant events, unpaid vendor contracts, and expensive short-term borrowing.
Her public reputation was much stronger than her actual finances.
Investigators also examined money collected during the Mercer preservation campaign.
Financial records later showed that substantial donations intended for restoration work had been diverted to Sabrina’s business expenses.
The farmhouse had become her answer to two problems.
It gave her a dramatic charitable success story, and she believed it could supply collateral for emergency financing.
But Sabrina didn’t own the property.
So she needed a deed.
When she discovered that Reed House Holdings was controlled by Anna Reed, she began collecting information about me.
Dylan had supplied images of my driver’s license after accepting Sabrina’s explanation that they were needed for family trust documentation.
He had also signed an affidavit without verifying the statements it contained.
The investigators recovered communications showing that Sabrina repeatedly urged him not to ask questions about the paperwork.
Those records did not make him innocent.
They showed how easily he had chosen not to know.
He had been willing to support a transaction bearing his wife’s name while reassuring himself that Sabrina understood the details.
And there was more.
On the night of my surgery, Dylan had told Sabrina I wouldn’t be able to deal with complicated paperwork for several days.
He had discussed serving the divorce agreement while I was still hospitalized because, in his words, I would have fewer resources to resist.
When Nina eventually showed me those messages, I had to put my phone down.
The property fraud and the divorce were connected by the same assumption.
Both of them believed I was weak enough to be controlled.
Three days after the twins were born, Dylan asked to visit me without Sabrina.
I allowed a brief conversation with my sister present.
He arrived wearing jeans and an old sweatshirt, looking nothing like the confident man who had served me divorce papers.
He stood beside the window, staring at his hands.
“I didn’t know you owned the farmhouse,” he said.
“I know.”
“I thought Sabrina had arranged everything.”
“She arranged to take it.”
He lowered his head.
“I made mistakes.”
I watched him struggle with the word mistakes.
Not betrayal.
Not cruelty.
Not the decision to abandon me during childbirth.
Mistakes.
He asked whether I would consider reconciliation if he ended his relationship with Sabrina.
I didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, I asked one question.
“Why did you want Eli?”
He frowned.
“What?”
“Why did you choose our son? Why did you decide Rose could stay with me, but Eli belonged with you?”
He looked toward the bassinets.
“Dad always wanted a grandson to carry on the family name.
I thought Eli should grow up in the farmhouse.”
I felt something settle inside me.
Dylan had not considered what either baby needed.
He had considered what his father wanted,
