Chapter 2 - The Fraudulent Contract and the Missing Acres
The tension in the kitchen grew so thick it could be sliced with a knife. Ethan looked around the room, noticing that Grandpa Walter’s mahogany desk had been stripped bare. When he asked where his grandfather's personal papers were, his mother answered far too quickly, claiming a lawyer had handled everything. When he asked about the bees, Derek rolled his eyes and casually remarked that pest control was scheduled for Monday because prospective buyers didn't want fifty thousand insects flying around.
That casual dismissal hurt Ethan more than his hip ever could. Grandpa Walter had always told him during hard times to watch the bees, because they never wasted energy arguing with thieves and always protected what mattered. Now, his own family was acting like a swarm of vultures, ready to strip the carcass clean.
Derek shoved a thick manila folder across the table toward him—a family settlement agreement. According to the paperwork, Grandpa Walter had supposedly left the main farmhouse equally to Mom, Derek, and Ethan. However, because Ethan had been "unreachable and medically incapacitated" during his hospitalization, they had taken it upon themselves to authorize a complete sale of the property, funneling Ethan’s alleged portion into a restricted trust entirely controlled by Derek.
"You just need to sign on the dotted line," his mother urged, feigning motherly concern.
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Ethan slowly read through every single page with clinical, disciplined focus. Beneath the legal jargon, his trained eye caught a glaring omission: the legal description of the property completely excluded the southern acreage—the apiary and the land surrounding Hive Twelve. When he pointed this out and asked if this was truly the entire estate, Derek chuckled, telling him not to make things harder for himself since he had come home broke and crippled.
Ethan calmly folded the document, looked his brother dead in the eye, and smiled. "No," he said softly. "I think you’ve made it very easy." Because no matter what papers they forged, he knew the golden rule Grandpa Walter had taught him: always know where the honey is hidden.
