Chapter 7 - The Final Audit
With Vance’s signature secured, the immediate danger had passed. But there was still one unfinished piece of business: my parents.
Two days after the meeting at the warehouse, I took a train back to my hometown. I didn't go to our suburban house. Instead, I booked a private conference room at a local hotel and sent a single text message to my father:
The debts are settled. Meet me at the Grand Plaza Hotel, Room 402. Bring Mom. Do not bring Tyler.
When the door to the conference room opened, my parents walked in. They looked ten years older. My mother’s hair was unkempt, her expensive designer purse scuffed. Richard was trembling, his posture completely defeated.
"Andrew!" Mom gasped, rushing forward as if to hug me.
I held up a hand, stopping her dead in her tracks. "Sit down."
They sat, looking at me with a mixture of fear and desperation.
"How... how did you settle with Vance?" Richard whispered. "He called us. He said the debt was paid. He said we are safe."
"I paid him two hundred thousand dollars from Grandfather's trust," I said, leaning back in my chair.
My mother’s eyes flared with a sudden, ugly spark of greed. "Two hundred thousand? Andrew... how much is left? Is there more? Tyler’s medical bills... his knee surgery is going to cost eighty thousand dollars, and the insurance won't cover it because of the circumstances—"
"There is nothing left for you," I interrupted, my voice dropping to an icy, absolute calm. I opened the leather ledger and slid it across the table. "This is the audit of Grandfather Arthur's estate. It proves that you, Richard, embezzled three hundred thousand dollars. It also proves that you, Mom, signed off on the forged documents."
My mother’s face drained of color. She stared at the paper, her lips trembling.
"I have already placed the remaining three hundred thousand dollars of my inheritance into a private, irrevocable trust that you cannot touch," I continued. "And I have given a copy of this ledger to Marcus Kane’s legal team. If you ever try to contact me, if you ever ask for a single penny, or if you ever tell anyone I am your son, they will submit this to the district attorney."
"Andrew, please!" Mom sobbed, reaching out her hands. "We are your parents! We raised you! We made mistakes, yes, but Tyler was our only hope for a bright future—"
"And that's why you gave him my birthday cake," I said, a soft, bitter smile playing on my lips. "That's why you bought him a sports car while telling me to get a second job. You bet everything on the wrong son. And now, you have to live with the payout."
May you like
I stood up, closing the ledger. "Goodbye, Richard. Goodbye, Mom. Enjoy your suburban life. You earned every bit of it."
I walked out of the room, ignoring their weeping. As the heavy wooden door clicked shut behind me, the last of the invisible chains holding me to my childhood shattered into dust. I was finally, truly free.
