Chapter 3 - The Interrogation
I woke up with a splitting headache, strapped tightly to a hard metal chair.
The room was damp, freezing cold, and smelled strongly of motor oil and old concrete.
A single harsh spotlight shined directly into my eyes, temporarily blinding me to my surroundings.
I tried to move my wrists, but thick plastic zip-ties cut painfully into my skin.
A man stepped out of the shadows, and his heavy boots echoed loudly across the empty floor.
It was not Daniel, but rather the husband of my sister Rachel, a ruthless real estate developer named Marcus.
Marcus laughed coldly, dragging a second metal chair across the floor and sitting directly in front of me.
He told me that Daniel was an idiot for trying to handle this situation by himself.
Marcus explained that Rachel had suspected the old man was hiding money for years, and they had hired private investigators to track his assets.
He leaned forward, his face inches from mine, and demanded to know where I had hidden the iron key.
I stared back at him with absolute silence, refusing to give him the satisfaction of my fear.
Marcus sighed aggressively and signaled to one of the masked men standing in the dark corner.
The man walked forward holding my backpack, turning it upside down and dumping the contents onto the floor.
The leather ledger hit the concrete with a heavy thud, causing Marcus's eyes to widen with greedy excitement.
He picked up the book and eagerly flipped through the pages of bank accounts and offshore trusts.
His arrogant smile faded quickly as he realized the pages only contained numbers, not the actual access codes.
He flipped the book upside down, shaking it frantically, but the iron key was nowhere to be found.
Marcus grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and slammed my chair backward, leaving me balancing on the back two legs.
He threatened to drop me backward onto the hard concrete if I did not tell him where the key was hidden.
I coughed, looked him dead in the eye, and told him that I had mailed the key to my lawyer an hour before they grabbed me.
It was a complete lie, but I needed him to believe that hurting me would ruin his chances of getting the money.
Marcus cursed loudly, threw the ledger onto a nearby table, and walked away to make a phone call.
I took a slow, deep breath, feeling the cold shape of the iron key pressing against my ankle.
I had slipped it out of my pocket and pushed it deep into my boot right before the men ambushed me on the street.
I noticed that the masked thug guarding me had turned his attention to a small television in the corner of the room.
I began to rub my zip-tied wrists furiously against a sharp, exposed screw on the back of the metal chair.
The plastic restraint slowly began to fray, biting deeper into my skin with every frantic movement.
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Just as the plastic tie finally snapped, the heavy steel door of the warehouse violently crashed open.
Marcus dropped his cell phone in shock as red and blue police sirens flooded the dark room with blinding light.
