Chapter 6 - The Trap
The phone slipped from my trembling fingers and shattered on the concrete sidewalk.
"What happened?" Emily demanded, grabbing my shoulders.
"He has our parents," I gasped, the air completely leaving my lungs.
"He is threatening to kill Dad if we do not bring the briefcase back to their house."
Emily's face hardened into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.
"It is a trap, Rachel," she warned fiercely. "If we go back there, he will kill all of us."
"We cannot just let him murder Dad!" I cried, tears streaming down my face.
We stood frozen on the sidewalk, caught between our own survival and our parents' lives.
"We need leverage," Emily finally said, her mind racing.
She opened the briefcase right there on the street and pulled out the life insurance documents.
"We take pictures of everything, send it to the news stations, and then we go to the house," she decided.
We spent the next ten minutes using her phone to photograph every single piece of damning evidence.
Emily emailed the entire file to five different major news networks with a scheduled delay.
"If we die today, those emails go out in two hours, and Daniel goes to prison forever," Emily promised.
We got back into the car and drove toward the wealthy suburb where our parents lived.
My heart hammered against my bruised ribs with every mile that passed.
When we pulled into the long driveway, the house was completely dark and silent.
Daniel's black SUV was parked on the lawn, the driver's side door left wide open.
"Stay behind me," Emily whispered, grabbing a heavy tire iron from the trunk.
I held the briefcase tightly, my spine aching as we slowly walked up to the front porch.
The front door was slightly ajar.
We pushed it open and stepped into the grand foyer of our childhood home.
"Mom? Dad?" I called out, my voice echoing in the eerie silence.
Suddenly, the living room lights flicked on, blinding us momentarily.
Daniel was sitting in my father's favorite leather armchair, his shattered leg wrapped in a crude splint.
He was holding a suppressed pistol, aimed directly at my chest.
But the most terrifying part was not the gun or his wicked smile.
It was my parents, sitting calmly on the sofa beside him, completely unharmed.
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My mother sipped a cup of tea, looked at me, and sighed in annoyance.
"Finally, you are here," my mother said coldly. "Give Daniel his property so we can finish this."
