Chapter 3 - The Loan That Was Already Coming Due
Dominic moved Margaret away from the reception room before Lucian could turn the confrontation into another argument.
He took her into his father’s old library on the opposite side of the hall and closed the door.
The room still smelled faintly of cedar and leather.
Margaret sat behind the desk.
Dominic called Evelyn Price, the Richmond attorney who had handled the family trust since his father’s death.
He put the phone on speaker.
Evelyn did not sound surprised when he read the lender’s name.
That bothered him immediately.
“Have you seen this loan?”
“I knew Bellamy Estate Holdings had opened a credit facility,” she said. “I did not know North Field had been pledged.”
Dominic looked at Margaret.
“What does this document actually do?”
“If it is valid, the trust gave the lender a deed of trust against that parcel.”
“And if the company defaults?”
“The lender can enforce its remedies. Not tomorrow. There is a process. But yes, North Field could ultimately be sold.”
Margaret stared at the desk.
Dominic asked when the next payment was due.
There was a pause while Evelyn checked information she was authorized to access through the company’s counsel file.
“Monday.”
Four days.
“How much?”
“Approximately one hundred eighty thousand.”
Dominic sat back.
Bellamy Cellars was successful by every public measure he knew.
The tasting room remained booked through fall. Weddings at the estate had an eighteen-month waiting list. Their Virginia distributor carried Bellamy wines in restaurants from Arlington to Norfolk.
“Why would they need $3.6 million?”
“I can't answer that from what I have.”
Margaret finally spoke.
“My distributions stopped in May.”
Dominic turned.
She had never told him.
“They said they were retaining cash because the spring bottling expenses ran over budget.”
“Who said?”
“Lucian.”
Another piece shifted.
Dominic had spent years refusing to become involved in the business.
After his father died, Lucian had taken over daily management. Dominic remained a minority member through his own family trust but attended only the annual meeting and signed routine resolutions when necessary.
His mother had complained more than once that Lucian was “moving too fast.”
Dominic had assumed it was another version of the old Bellamy family argument: preservation versus expansion.
He had told her to let Lucian run the company.
Now North Field was collateral for millions.
And he had not known.
Evelyn asked Margaret to photograph every page of the packet and send it to her secure client portal.
Before they ended the call, she added something.
“Dominic, don't accuse anyone of forgery yet.”
He looked at the signature.
“Why not?”
“Because if Margaret physically signed a page that was later incorporated into a closing packet, what happened may be more complicated than a forged signature.”
Margaret closed her eyes briefly.
“I remember the breakfast.”
Dominic waited.
“Valeria kept turning pages for me.”
“What else?”
“She was in a hurry.”
Margaret opened her eyes.
“And when I tried to read one of them, she put her hand over the paragraph and said, ‘That one's just the legal description.’”
Dominic looked again at the property description attached to the consent.
North Field.
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The page Margaret remembered trying to read might have been the only page that would have told her what she was giving away.
And four days from now, the first payment Dominic knew about was due.
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