Chapter 4 - The Escalation"Mom," Brandon gasped, his hands shaking so violently he almost dropped his phone. "The bank account... it's zeroed out. Everything is frozen."
Evelyn jumped up from her chair, her face turning pale beneath her dark tan. "What do you mean, zeroed out? What about the sixty-four thousand dollars you transferred into my account yesterday?"
Brandon hastily swiped through his banking app, opening his mother's linked profile.
ALERT: External Transfer #8821 reversed due to pending criminal fraud investigation.
"She reversed it!" Brandon yelled, panic finally breaking through his arrogant posture. "Claire reversed the transfer! She froze my salary! She froze my cards!"
"That little ungrateful brat!" Evelyn shrieked, her voice echoing across the quiet pool deck, attracting stares from other resort guests. "How dare she touch our money! Who does she think she is?"
"She knows, Mom!" Brandon panicked, pacing back and forth. "She found out about the door code! She found out about the transfer! We have to go back right now!"
Without waiting another minute, Brandon and Evelyn packed their bags in a frenzy, abandoned their luxury suite—where their credit cards were promptly declined at the front desk, forcing Brandon to exhaust his last five hundred dollars in cash—and piled into Brandon’s SUV for the five-hour drive back to North Carolina.
During the entire drive, Brandon tried calling my cell phone.
Fifty-four calls.
Thirty-eight text messages.
Nineteen voicemails.
11:00 AM: Claire, answer your phone right now! What did you do to my bank account?
1:15 PM: You are making a massive mistake, Claire. You need to drop these ridiculous legal filings immediately before I get home.
3:30 PM: We are an hour away. Have the front door unlocked and my money restored, or I swear to God I am taking full custody of Lily!
I sat peacefully on the back porch of my house, nursing Lily while watching the sun begin to set over the manicured lawn. My phone sat quietly on the small table beside me, muted.
Beside me sat two uniformed officers from the city police department, along with Eleanor and my brother, Marcus. A professional locksmith had just finished installing high-tech, reinforced steel frame locks and biometric keypads on every door of the house. Four security cameras with direct live feeds to the local police precinct had been mounted at every corner of the property.
At 5:15 p.m., the loud, screeching sound of tires echoed down the quiet cul-de-sac.
Brandon’s black SUV pulled into the driveway, coming to a sudden, violent stop right on my lawn.
The car doors slammed open, and Brandon sprinted toward the front porch, his suit jacket unbuttoned, his tie loose, his face red with uncontrolled rage. Evelyn hurried right behind him, waving her designer handbag like a weapon.
"Claire!" Brandon screamed, charging up the front steps. "Open this damn door right now!"
He reached out and smashed his fingers against the new biometric keypad.
May you like
Red light. Denied.
"What the hell did you do to the code?!" Brandon roared, pounding his fists furiously against the heavy oak wood of the door. "Open this door, Claire! You can't lock me out of my own house!"
