1157 They Paid For His College And Lent Him Thousands, Only For Their Son To Lure Them To A Mountain Cliff And Whispered: "Are The Old Folks Dead Yet?"

The air in the penthouse office turned to ice.

Marcus Vance slowly stood up behind his desk, his eyes darting from Brandon to Jonathan. The smooth, untouchable confidence that had defined his demeanor moments before was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating fury.

"You didn't bring a copy," Vance said, his voice dropping into a dangerous register as he stared at the flash drive in Jonathan's hand. "You brought a dead man's switch."

"Samuel is sitting in a federal building downtown right now," Jonathan lied smoothly, holding Vance's gaze without flinching. "If we don't walk out of this office with Courtney and the signed release within ten minutes, the second batch of files—including your personal email server logs connecting your shell companies to the Dublin bribes—goes public."

Brandon stared at his father, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. "Dad... you sent it to the feds? You're going to get me arrested!"

"You tried to k:ill us, Brandon," I said, my voice cutting through the room like a knife. The pain in my ribs flared up, but I ignored it, stepping forward until I was standing right beside Jonathan. "We protected you your entire life. We paid your debts, we forgave your lies, and you pushed us off a cliff. The only person who got you arrested is standing right over there."

I pointed a shaking finger at Marcus Vance.

Vance didn't flinch. He slowly walked around his desk, his eyes fixed on Jonathan. For a terrifying second, I thought he might reach for something in his jacket, but he stopped three feet away, his jaw clenched tight.

"You think the feds care about an old industrial dump in Dublin?" Vance asked quietly. "They have thousands of those backlog cases across the country. It would take years to prosecute. But your son? Your son’s name is on every fraudulent wire transfer, every forged notary stamp, and every extortion threat."

He turned his gaze to Brandon, who shrank back against the glass door.

"He goes away for a very long time, Mr. Miller," Vance whispered. "Is that what you want? To watch your only child spend the rest of his prime years behind bars just to prove a point about a strip of dirt?"

The question hung in the room, heavy and suffocating. It was the exact emotional trap Vance had set from the beginning: pitting our love for our son against our sense of justice.

Jonathan looked at Brandon. Our son looked small, broken, and utterly ruined—the very image of the boy who used to climb up on our shoulders during autumn hikes in the mountains.

"No," Jonathan said softly.

My heart skipped a beat. "Jonathan—"

"No, Marcus," Jonathan continued, looking back at the developer. "We aren't going to let Brandon take the fall alone. Because if Brandon goes to prison for forgery and fraud, he's going to testify under oath about every single shell company, every bribe, and every illegal land acquisition you orchestrated through him. He’s going to bring you down right beside him."

Vance’s face darkened into a mask of pure malice. He realized then that Jonathan wasn't bluffing. We weren't trying to save Brandon from the law; we were offering Vance a choice between sharing the wreckage or drowning in it alone.

Before Vance could speak, the double doors at the end of the hallway echoed with the heavy, unmistakable thud of booted feet.

Thud. Thud. Thud.