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“What?” I rush out, pushing past Carver’s shoulder and moving in beside King, only to have his arm shoot out to stop me from getting closer. “You know where who is?”
“Paris Moustaff,” Matthew rushes out, not bothering to raise his head as he shuffles through the papers before him. “I’ve spent countless nights down here trying to figure it out and I think I finally have something.”
Cruz cuts in, stepping straight up to the table. “What do you mean? We’ve been searching for information for months and came up blank.”
“I know,” Matthew says, finding a property sales contract and holding it out to Cruz. “The day you guys mentioned that you went down to the Ravenwood’s mountain property and found that’s where Paris had been staying, a memory sparked inside my head from years ago and I couldn’t quite figure it out until this morning.”
Carver moves in beside me as Grayson hovers close by, not trusting Matthew one bit. “What memory?”
Matthew shakes his head, standing from behind the table and stretching his neck. He pulls his glasses off and rubs his hands over his eyes, looking just as tired as I feel. “Umm, when I was around nineteen or twenty—fifteen or so years ago—I made some pretty fucking stupid choices and got myself in trouble with substance abuse. I got high, stole a fucking car and went joyriding through the streets. I thought it was a great time, but when I came down from my high, I learned that during my ride, I killed a man and I didn’t even know. The cops were after me and Dynasty made me a deal to spend my days down here sorting out the fucking mess this room was in while I got sober, otherwise I could do a few years in prison.”
Grayson nods. “It’s true,” he says, making Matthew’s head snap up in shock, thinking that he was spilling a secret that he’s kept close to his heart for all these years. “I make it my business to know this shit, but how the fuck does this have anything to do with Paris?”
Montgomery lets out a sigh and drops his gaze back to the papers. “I had to sort through all the paperwork and file it all away. There were years of backlog and I got through it quicker than I thought, but I hadn’t done my time yet, so I came here day after day and I went through each of these files. Given, I was trying to find dirt on the men who I would one day lead Dynasty with, and while I certainly found plenty of shit about the men we live and serve by, I also found more useful information than I could ever know.” Matthew’s gaze falls to me. “Your father for example, did you know he was in the property market? He was an avid purchaser, a collector if you will, but always had issues reselling.”
I shake my head. “No, he wasn’t,” I say, positive that Matthew has his wires crossed. “I’ve been through his property portfolio. He has his estate here, the mountain estate which burned down, and a few smaller properties littered around the globe but nothing substantial.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he tells me, indicating the contract in Cruz’s hands. “You’ve been looking in the wrong places. Check out the name on that contract.”
I take the contract from Cruz and glance over it, seeing a name that I wasn’t expecting to see—The London Moustaff Family Trust. My brows furrow and I flip through the pages, having absolutely no idea what I’m looking at. “What … what is this?”
“Your father wanted to keep all his properties separate from his Ravenwood title so he had a family trust drawn up under your mother’s name and together, they purchased as many properties as they could. They started off small, buying properties that needed a bit of love. But right from the start, they never sold any of their projects. Instead, they were rented out to people in need.”
My gaze lifts back to Matthew’s. “And you just know all of this information?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “It’s amazing what a bit of light reading can find you.”
“Holy shit,” I breathe. “So they have hundreds of properties?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Hundreds, maybe thousands. I don’t know everything, but what I do know is that you are the sole surviving member of the London Moustaff Family Trust and those properties are now yours.”
“What does this have to do with Paris?” Cruz questions, getting bored of storytime.
Matthew indicates to the hundreds of filing cabinets labeled ‘Ravenwood’ and glances back at Cruz. “Because Paris is obsessed with her twin sister. She went out of her way to live in her mountain estate and when that was compromised, she had nowhere to go, and if I know this information about London and Andrew, then how many others do? Tobias was Andrew’s closest friend. Is it possible that he knew of these properties and told the wrong person in passing? Who’s to say that Paris hasn’t been staying in one of these properties this whole time?”
