Chapter 7 - The Bribe in the Dark
The holding room smelled of ozone and damp wool when I walked back in to face my father for the second time that day.
He sat alone at the stainless-steel table, his hands uncuffed now, resting limply over a paper cup of lukewarm water. The fight had entirely drained out of him; he looked like a ghost of a man waiting for a sentence that had already been passed. When the heavy door clicked shut behind me, he didn't look up until I pulled out the chair and laid the weathered envelope directly in front of him.
Daniel blinked, staring down at the corner of the check peeking through the paper flap. A shudder ran through his frail shoulders.
"Where did you get this, Elina?" he whispered, his voice cracked and hollow.
"NCIS found it in your coat pocket, Dad," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Paid out by a front company belonging to Richard Vance’s corporate partners. Care to explain why a retired clerk suddenly came into a quarter of a million dollars right before your wife and stepdaughter decided to pay me a violent late-night visit?"
Daniel’s head dropped into his hands. He let out a long, ragged groan that sounded like air escaping a punctured tire.
"Lenora... Lenora found out about the debt," he mumbled into his palms, his words muffled and shaking. "My retirement account... it was empty. I borrowed against the house to keep Brooke’s husband out of bankruptcy last year. When Vance’s people offered the money, they said all I had to do was convince you to sign a quiet release waiving any claims to the family estate, and... and to show up at your apartment to help them 'reason' with you."
The room spun for a fraction of a second, not from pain, but from the sheer, staggering magnitude of his betrayal.
"You sold me out," I said, the words slipping out as a cold, flat whisper. "For two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you helped Lenora and Brooke plan a home invasion on an active-duty military base."
"No! Not an invasion!" Daniel snapped back, his head shooting up, his eyes wide and bloodshot with panic. "They just said they were going to scare you into dropping the complaints from your old high school lawsuit, to make you sign the papers! I didn't know Brooke was going to hit you! I swear to God, Elina, I didn't know she would kick you!"
"And yet," I replied, standing up slowly so I towered over him, "when she did... when I was lying on the floor tasting my own blood with fractured ribs... you took a step backward and hid behind Lenora."
Daniel opened his mouth, but no sound came out. No excuse. No defense. Just the suffocating weight of his own cowardice staring back at him in the mirror.
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"You're not just an accomplice anymore, Dad," I said, buttoning the collar of my uniform shirt. "You're a co-conspirator in a federally investigated criminal enterprise. Enjoy your holding cell."
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