Chapter 3 - THE TRUST MY WIFE SHOULDN’T HAVE KNOWN ABOUTMy mother controlled the Sterling Family Stewardship Trust.
Estimated assets:
$310 million.
Commercial real estate.
Manufacturing shares.
Investment portfolios.
A family foundation.
I was co-trustee.
Lauren was a beneficiary.
My sons were future beneficiaries.
Victoria was not.
By design.
Spouses had no control.
Dad created that rule after watching three divorces tear apart his siblings’ businesses.
Victoria hated it.
Not because she was poor.
She wasn’t.
She came from money.
But our trust was larger.
Older.
Protected.
And the older she got, the more she treated exclusion from control as disrespect.
I had never told her the detailed structure.
So how did she know enough to discuss removing me as trustee?
Gerald Pike.
That was the obvious answer.
Mom fired him after discovering he had drafted documents favoring Lauren without authorization.
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At the time, we thought it was aggressive advocacy.
Now I wondered if it had been something else.
