Chapter 10 - Dawn at the Courthouse
The office doors blew open, and two armed federal marshals stepped into the room, followed immediately by Marcus Vance—my chief corporate counsel, who had flown in on a private jet as soon as he received my encrypted data packet thirty minutes earlier.
Arthur Vance’s face turned the color of spoiled milk. He spun around, staring at the federal badges gleaming under the office lights.
"What is this?!" Arthur stammered, stepping back until his legs hit the edge of the bookshelf. "You have no jurisdiction here! This is a state property matter!"
"Interstate wire fraud, mail fraud, and financial exploitation of elderly interstate beneficiaries under federal elder-abuse statutes," Marcus Vance recited crisply, pulling a thick stack of warrants from his briefcase and stepping up to the desk. "Mr. Arthur Vance, you are under federal arrest."
Arthur lunged toward his desk drawer, likely reaching for a panic button or a hidden firearm, but Marcus and the marshals were already on him, slamming his hands onto the polished wood and securing cold steel handcuffs around his wrists with practiced precision.
"You can't do this!" Arthur screamed, thrashing against the operatives as they hauled him toward the door. "Apex will destroy you! They own this entire county!"
"Apex owns nothing anymore," I said quietly, watching him from across the desk as he was dragged out into the hallway. "I just bought their primary debt portfolio an hour ago."
The office fell silent once more.
Marcus turned to me, snapping his briefcase shut. "The federal marshals have already seized the municipal records office and frozen all accounts associated with the Pine Ridge trust. Your parents are safe at the county hospital under 24-hour armed protection."
I nodded, walking over to the window and looking out at the first pale streaks of Christmas morning light breaking over the snow-covered rooftops of Pinewood Ridge.
The twelve-year exile was over. But as I looked down at the dark, winding road leading out of town, my phone buzzed again with a high-priority encrypted alert.
May you like
It wasn't Arthur Vance. It wasn't Brenda.
It was an automated security ping from my corporate headquarters in Columbus, flagging an incoming, unannounced satellite communication request from the executive board of Apex Holdings itself—requesting an immediate, unconditional surrender conference with me at sunrise.
