Chapter 5 - The Morning Summons
The first rays of pale morning light filtered through our apartment blinds, painting thin stripes across the kitchen floor where I stood brewing a pot of black coffee.
Daniel hadn't slept. He had spent the entire night going through the financial printouts Marcus had left us, cross-referencing the wire transfers, signature forgeries, and corporate bylaws until his eyes were bloodlined with exhaustion.
Ivy padded out of her bedroom a few minutes later, wearing her favorite pajama set with little yellow ducks, clutching her stuffed rabbit.
"Morning, Mom," she mumbled sleepily, rubbing her eyes.
I knelt down, kissing the top of her head. "Morning, sweetie. Did you sleep okay?"
"I had a bad dream about the ballroom," she admitted softly, looking down at her slippers. "Are we going back there today?"
"Never," Daniel said, walking out of the study with a stack of signed legal documents neatly organized inside a leather folder. He knelt down beside Ivy, offering her a warm, reassuring smile that chased away the dark shadows of the night before. "We're never going back there, Ivy. Today, we start a brand-new adventure. Just the three of us."
Ivy brightened instantly, wrapping her tiny arms around his neck. "Can we get pancakes?"
"Pancakes with extra syrup," Daniel promised, kissing her cheek before looking up at me.
My phone, resting on the kitchen counter, suddenly buzzed violently against the granite surface.
I picked it up. It wasn't a text message. It was a video call notification from an unknown, encrypted number.
Daniel walked over, standing right beside me as I stared at the screen.
"Answer it," he said quietly.
I pressed the green button and switched the phone to speaker mode.
The screen flickered, resolving into the crisp, high-definition video feed of the executive boardroom at Linwood Engineering downtown. Seated at the head of the massive mahogany conference table wasn't Henry Linwood. It was Veronica, dressed in an immaculate black Chanel suit, flanked by two corporate security guards and three grim-faced board members.
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A cold, triumphant smirk played across Veronica's lips as she looked directly into the camera lens.
"Good morning, Daniel. Good morning, Cara," Veronica’s voice purred through the phone speaker, sounding entirely too cheerful for eight o'clock in the morning. "I hope you enjoyed your first night as husband and wife. Because by noon today, federal marshals will be arriving at your apartment with an arrest warrant for corporate wire fraud and embezzlement. And as for the little girl... well, child protective services has already been notified about your unstable living conditions."
