Chapter 3 - The Shadow of Gregory Vance
I spent the next three hours inside the vault room, meticulously photographing every single page of the ledger with my cheap smartphone. The documents were damning. My father, Richard Sterling, had embezzled nearly three hundred thousand dollars from my grandfather's estate while Arthur lay dying in the hospice. He had funneled the cash through a fake sports scouting agency called Apex Talent Group, run by Gregory Vance.
Vance wasn't a scout. He was a high-stakes bookmaker who targeted wealthy suburban parents, convincing them to bet massive sums on their children’s athletic prospects. My father had bet everything on Tyler’s future. He had borrowed heavily from Vance, using the promised inheritance of my trust fund as collateral.
But when I turned eighteen and didn't show up to release the trust, the collateral vanished. Vance had realized he had been played.
I locked the ledger back in the box, keeping only the bearer bonds and the digital copies of the evidence on my phone. When I walked out of the vault into the bright Chicago sunshine, I was no longer the frightened boy who had run away with sixty dollars. I had the power to destroy my parents. But first, I had to ensure they didn't drag me down with them.
I walked to a local tech shop and bought a new, high-end burner phone. I turned it on, dialed my father's number, and waited.
It rang once before he picked up, his voice hoarse and gasping. "Andrew? Is that you? Please, the doctors say Tyler might lose his leg. They broke his knee, Andrew! He'll never play again!"
"Listen to me very carefully, Richard," I said, using his first name for the first time in my life. The transition from 'Dad' to 'Richard' felt incredibly natural, like stripping a false label off a jar of poison. "I know about Gregory Vance. I know about Apex Talent Group. And I know about the three hundred thousand dollars you stole from Grandfather."
A choking sound came from the other end of the line. "How... how do you..."
"I have the ledger," I continued, my voice cold and steady. "I have the forged signatures. If you or your wife ever refer to me as your son again, or if you ever try to contact me for a handout, I will send these files directly to the FBI. Do you understand?"
"Andrew, please!" Richard cried, his voice crackling with sheer terror. "We were desperate! The mortgage... we did it for the family! We were going to pay it back once Tyler made it to the pros! But Vance... Vance has people everywhere. He knows you're in Chicago. He tracked your bus ticket. He’s sending his men to find you. If you don't give him the money, he won't just kill Tyler—he'll kill you too!"
Before I could reply, a shadow fell over me.
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I looked up. Two heavily built men in dark suits were standing at the corner of the block, their eyes locked onto me. One of them held a phone, looking down at a screen and then up at my face.
They had found me.
