Chapter 5 - The Snake's Last Bite
In the small guest cottage near the north fence line, Richard Blackwood paced the floor like a caged predator.
Marcus Vance sat at the small kitchen table, surrounded by laptop screens, legal pads, and half-empty coffee cups.
"There has to be a loop-hole, Marcus!" Richard roared, slamming his glass of scotch onto the counter. "A technicality! She’s a widow with no business degree! She doesn't know how to run a global distillery!"
"It doesn't matter if she knows how to run a farm or not, Richard," Marcus said exhausted, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. "The title deed Ethan executed is ironclad. It was filed under state land-grant restoration statutes. You can't contest it without opening yourself up to forty-year-old forgery charges."
"Then we burn it down," Margaret whispered from the armchair near the window.
Richard stopped pacing. He turned to look at his wife.
"What did you say?" Richard asked, his tone dropping into a dangerous hush.
"The London distributors arrive on Thursday," Margaret said, her voice dripping with venom. "They are coming to inspect the fifty thousand barrels in Warehouse B—the reserve inventory worth forty million dollars that you used as collateral for the bank loans."
She looked at her husband with dark, desperate eyes.
"If Warehouse B burns before Thursday... the insurance pays out fifty million dollars directly to the corporate holding account that you still control. Eleanor gets two thousand acres of scorched earth, and you walk away with the cash."
Richard stared at his wife for ten long seconds.
Slowly, a terrible, sinister grin spread across his face.
He looked at Marcus. "Call Vance Security. Tell them I need two men who know how to handle industrial electrical fires. Make it look like a faulty transformer in the dry house."
"Richard..." Marcus stammered, turning pale. "That’s arson. Federal arson."
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"It's survival!" Richard barked. "That woman threw us out of our own house! She thinks she can sit in my chair and command my empire?! I’d rather see Blackwood Ranch turned to ash than let Mateo Ramirez’s grandson inherit a single dollar!"
Unbeknownst to them, standing outside the cottage window in the heavy dusk, thirteen-year-old Lucas Blackwood stepped back into the shadows of the pecan trees, his phone held tight in his trembling hand, recording every single word.
