Chapter 5 - The Midnight Escape
The sound of twisting metal echoed across the estate as Michael’s speeding Ferrari slammed directly into the heavy steel barricade Vance’s security team had deployed across the main entrance.
The luxury sports car’s front end crushed like an accordion, smoke billowing into the dark night sky.
I sprinted down the grand staircase, leaving two guards to protect Emily, and reached the front gates within two minutes.
Vance and three guards had already pulled a coughing, bleeding Michael out of the smoking wreckage, slamming him onto the asphalt driveway and securing his wrists behind his back with heavy plastic flex-cuffs.
"You crazy bastard!" Michael screamed, spitting blood onto the driveway as I approached. "You tried to kill me! I’m your brother!"
"You just destroyed a half-million-dollar vehicle owned by my holding company," I said coldly, standing over him as rain began to fall over Beverly Hills. "That’s grand auto theft and destruction of high-value property. Add that to the embezzlement charges."
"Daniel, please!" Margaret screamed from an upstairs window, where she was watching the scene unfold behind locked glass. "He’s your brother! Don't do this to your own blood!"
"Blood didn't stop him from leaving my wife in a closet, Margaret!" I yelled back up at the mansion, my voice cutting through the falling rain.
A sleek black Mercedes pulled into the driveway, past the wrecked Ferrari.
Out stepped Victoria Vance—no relation to my security chief—the most feared white-collar criminal defense attorney and corporate prosecutor in California. She was fifty years old, wearing an immaculate gray suit, carrying a thick leather briefcase. I had retained her firm four hours ago while my plane was over the Pacific.
"Daniel," Victoria said, stepping under an umbrella held by her assistant. "I see the circus has already started."
"Victoria," I said, shaking her hand. "The forensic accounting team?"
"They arrived twenty minutes ago," Victoria replied, pointing toward two large vans pulling up behind her car. "A team of twelve forensic auditors are setting up in your home office right now. We have full authorization from a state judge to freeze every account, seize every hard drive, and impound every vehicle on this property."
She looked down at Michael lying handcuffed in the rain. "Is this the brother?"
"That’s him," I said. "He just attempted to flee the jurisdiction using stolen corporate property."
Victoria smiled—a cold, predatory expression. "Excellent. That gives us leverage to deny bail at his arraignment tomorrow morning."
She looked up at the towering mansion. "Daniel, what my team has found in the last two hours of remote banking analysis is worse than you thought. They weren't just spending your money on luxury goods."
I frowned, my eyes narrowing. "What do you mean?"
"Your mother and sister signed a preliminary agreement three weeks ago to sell the eastern half of this estate to a foreign development group," Victoria revealed, pulling a document from her folder. "They forged Emily’s signature as power-of-attorney while you were overseas. They were planning to pocket twenty million dollars and put Emily in a state-run care facility by the end of the year."
A cold, absolute silence fell over the driveway.
May you like
I looked at the house, at the window where my mother stood watching.
"Victoria," I whispered, my voice dropping into an icy abyss. "I don't want a settlement. I don't want an apology. I want every single one of them in a federal prison cell."
