Chapter 12 - A Ghost from the Past
The glow of the laptop screen illuminated the dark kitchen as I dug into the digital footprint of Arthur Pendelton. The police had given me his name, assuming the threat he posed was neutralized the moment my parents were arrested. But I knew better. In my family's world, loyalty was a commodity bought with blood or money, and Arthur clearly had a price.
I spent hours scouring public records, court dockets, and archived news articles. It didn't take long to find the cracks in Arthur's facade. He wasn't some high-end, untouchable operative. Ten years ago, he had been a decorated police officer, until a massive gambling debt and a corruption scandal had stripped him of his badge. He had barely avoided prison, forced to scrape by as a low-rent private investigator taking whatever dirty jobs came his way.
But it was the financial records that made my blood run cold. Two months before the incident at the apartment, Arthur's massive debts had been suddenly and completely wiped out. A shell company had paid off hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single wire transfer.
I traced the shell company through a labyrinth of corporate registries, a trick my father had unwittingly taught me when I was a teenager doing his filing. The trail ended at a boutique wealth management firm in the city. The primary signatory on the account wasn't my father.
It was Bethany.
My sister. The golden child. The one who had stood in the apartment, feigning innocence and shock while my parents took the fall. She had been the one pulling Arthur's strings all along.
The realization hit me with the force of a freight train. My parents were monsters, yes, but they were aging and arrogant. Bethany was different. She was cold, calculating, and utterly ruthless. She had inherited my father's cruelty and my mother's cunning, wrapping it all in a socially acceptable, polished exterior.
May you like
With our parents locked away, the family trust—a massive fortune built on ruined lives and shattered businesses—would fall entirely under her control, provided I was out of the picture. The text message wasn't just a threat; it was a promise. She was going to finish what my parents started.
I closed the laptop, a cold, hard resolve settling in my chest. Bethany thought she had won. She thought I would cower in fear while she claimed the empire. But she had made one fatal mistake. She had given me a reason to fight back.
