Chapter 4 - The Unraveling
Thomas’s eyes scanned the first page, his smug expression slowly curdling into horror. Aunt Clara leaned over his shoulder, her gold bracelets clinking together as her face drained of color.
"These... these are wire transfers," Thomas stammered.
"One point eight million dollars," I said, leaning forward, resting my palms on the table. "Stolen directly from my child's trust fund. Stolen from my wife's medical reserves. Stolen from the accounts I built while working sixteen-hour days for twelve years."
Margaret jumped to her feet, her hands trembling violently. "That money was for the family! You have millions, Daniel! You live in this palace while your uncle’s farm in Lexington is facing foreclosure! I took what was owed to us!"
"You didn't take anything for the family, Margaret," I said coldly, turning a page in my copy of the dossier. "Thomas, did you know that out of that $1.8 million, your mother only gave you eighty thousand to pay off your equipment lease?"
Thomas froze, looking up at Margaret. "What?"
"She told you I was giving her a small allowance, didn't she?" I chuckled, a dark, humorless sound. "She told you I was stingy, that I was letting my family starve while Emma spent money on luxury items."
"She said you refused to help us!" Thomas spat, his face turning bright red as he turned toward his mother. "Margaret! You said Daniel gave you eighty grand out of his own pity! Where is the rest of the two million?!"
"She bought a luxury condo in Gulf Shores under Arthur Pendelton’s name," I said, dropping a set of property deeds onto the table. "She put three hundred thousand into a private high-stakes casino account in Mississippi. And she’s been paying Arthur Pendelton a ten-thousand-dollar monthly retainer to falsify my corporate ledgers."
The silence in the room was deafening. Brody looked at his mother; Clara looked at Margaret with absolute disbelief; and Thomas looked as if he had been struck by lightning.
"You lied to us," Thomas whispered, his voice trembling with fury. "You used us to come down here and intimidate Daniel so he wouldn't look into the accounts!"
"I did it for us!" Margaret screamed, her voice cracking into a frantic, shrill screech. "Daniel was giving everything to her! That charity case! That girl whose family left her with nothing! I am his mother! Everything he has belongs to me!"
"Nothing I have belongs to you," I said softly.
I pulled out my phone and tapped the screen once.
The grand oak doors of the house swung open. Vance, my head of security, stepped inside, followed by four uniformed officers from the Franklin Police Department and six men wearing black moving uniforms.
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Margaret’s eyes went wide with pure terror. "Daniel... what is this? What are you doing?!"
"You said this house belongs to your family, Margaret," I said, walking toward the foyer. "So I’m giving you ten minutes to pack whatever fits in two suitcases. Everything else in this house—every piece of jewelry, every fur coat, every painting you bought with stolen money—is being impounded as evidence of grand larceny."
