Chapter 6 - The Voice on the Line
The landline phone shrilled a fourth time, its sharp mechanical peal cutting through the hushed, sunlit silence of the hotel suite like a glass shard. Mom shrank back against the sofa cushions, her fingers clawing nervously at the fabric of her blouse, while Dad stared at the black instrument as if it were a venomous snake coil-ready to strike.
"Dad," I repeated, my voice steady and unyielding as I kept my eyes locked on his pale face. "Answer it."
Slowly, his shoulders slouched beneath the invisible weight of a decade's worth of poor choices, Manuel pushed himself up from the armchair. His boots dragged heavily against the plush hotel carpet. He reached the mahogany desk, hovered a trembling, calloused hand over the receiver, and lifted it to his ear.
"Hello?" he rasped.
I watched his expression shift in real time. The weary resignation in his eyes evaporated, replaced instantly by a sharp, suffocating terror. The color drained entirely from his cheeks, leaving him a ghastly shade of gray.
"Who is this?" Dad forced out, his knuckles turning pure white where he gripped the plastic receiver. "What do you mean, you're at the shop?"
Across the room, Mom gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Manuel? Who is that? Is it Derek?"
I didn't wait for Dad to fumble through an answer. I stepped across the room, grabbed the extension handset sitting on the secondary writing table, and pressed it directly to my ear.
"Put it on speaker, Dad," I commanded softly.
He looked at me, panic wide in his dark eyes, before punching the speakerphone button on the base.
"I'll keep this brief, Mr. Vance," a smooth, synthetic voice echoed through the room—clearly routed through a digital voice-masker. "You and your son think you played a clever little game freezing the accounts and bailing on the marina. But you left your workshop door unlocked. And right now, my associates are standing inside your precious machine shop with a pair of industrial plasma cutters."
"You can't do that!" Dad shouted into the receiver, his voice cracking with fury and panic. "That property is under primary deed protection! That's federal—"
"That property," the voice interrupted smoothly, "was cross-collateralized three weeks ago under a secondary liability rider signed by your golden-boy son, Derek. Right now, we own the machinery, the inventory, the building permits, and every single acre of land it sits on. You have two hours to clear out whatever personal sentimental junk is left in the office before we level the structure to make way for the new access road."
"Wait!" I snapped into the mouthpiece, stepping right up to the desk. "Who is backing Meridian Trust? Give me a name."
A low, cold chuckle hummed through the speaker.
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"You're a bright girl, Alexandra. You know how to pull a charter contract apart. But you're playing checkers in a game of global chess. Tell your brother thanks for the signature. He’s already spending his finder’s fee in the Caymans."
The line clicked dead. A hollow, flat dial tone began to hum through the empty room.
