I was just trying to survive dinner when my mother-in-law k:icke:d my chair and sent me face-first into my salad. “Oh honey, maybe next time sit up straighter,” she said, while my husband laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. They thought they had humiliated me in public. They had no idea I already knew their secret—or that this dinner was about to destroy both of them.

Marcus shoved me into the passenger seat of his beat-up sedan.

He slammed his foot on the gas pedal and we tore out of the police parking lot.

I gripped the dashboard as we swerved through the busy city streets.

I asked him how Brenda could possibly order a demolition on a house she did not legally own yet.

Marcus explained that the forged loan documents gave her immediate temporary foreclosure rights.

She had classified the property as a hazardous structure to fast-track the teardown.

Her goal was not to sell the land.

Her goal was to bury the floorboard safe under tons of concrete and rubble.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I realized she knew exactly where the backup drives were hidden.

Someone had to have told her.

Only three people in the world knew about my father's hidden safe.

Me, my father, and my estranged younger sister, Chloe.

I pulled out Marcus's phone and dialed Chloe's number.

It went straight to voicemail.

We turned the final corner into my childhood neighborhood.

A massive yellow bulldozer was already parked on the front lawn of my father's house.

The heavy steel wrecking ball was suspended high in the air.

A foreman in a hard hat was screaming into a walkie-talkie.

Marcus slammed the brakes and we skidded to a halt on the curb.

I threw open the car door and sprinted across the overgrown grass.

I screamed at the foreman to stop the machine immediately.

He ignored me and gave the operator a thumbs-up signal.

The engine of the bulldozer roared to life with a deafening rumble.

I ran directly into the path of the massive vehicle.

Marcus yelled my name in absolute terror.

The operator slammed on the brakes, causing the massive machine to shudder to a halt just inches from my body.

The foreman marched over and angrily demanded that I move out of the way.

I told him I was the legal owner and the demolition was illegal.

He pulled out a signed authorization form to prove he had the right to tear it down.

“Which daughter is yours?” should have been a harmless question

The first wineglass shattered at 8:07 p.m

The moment the mafia boss’s wife called me “an illiterate servant,”

I looked at the signature on the bottom of the work order.

It was signed by Chloe.

Chapter 4 - The Race Against Time