Chapter 5 - The Bitter Betrayal
I stared at my sister's signature on the demolition order while the world spun around me.
Chloe had always resented our father for leaving the house entirely to me in his will.
She believed he favored me because I followed him into the financial world while she struggled with debt.
Brenda must have found her and exploited that exact resentment.
Marcus ran up beside me and flashed a federal injunction document at the furious foreman.
The foreman cursed under his breath and ordered his crew to power down the machinery.
I did not wait for them to pack up.
I sprinted up the porch steps and kicked open the front door of my childhood home.
The living room was completely empty, stripped of all our family furniture.
I fell to my knees in the center of the room and began frantically tearing at the edge of the carpet.
I pulled back the dusty rug and found the loose oak floorboard.
My fingers bled as I pried the wood up.
The hidden steel compartment was right where my father had left it.
I punched in the six-digit combination with trembling hands.
The heavy metal lid popped open.
The safe was completely empty.
There were no hard drives, no backup ledgers, and no original banking records.
Instead, there was a single burner phone resting at the bottom of the dark space.
The screen lit up instantly, indicating an incoming video call.
I answered it with a shaking finger.
Brenda's face appeared on the screen, looking incredibly smug as she sat in a luxurious private hospital room.
She explained that she had faked a heart attack at the police station to get transferred to a comfortable private suite.
She told me Chloe was a very good negotiator and had happily traded the hard drives for a million dollars in cash.
She pressed a button on her remote control and flipped the camera view.
Connor was standing in the hospital room, holding a lighter next to a metal trash can.
Inside the trash can were my hard drives, soaked in lighter fluid.
Connor smiled at the camera and dropped the lighter.
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Flames erupted instantly, destroying the only concrete evidence that could prove my innocence.
Brenda laughed and told me the game was finally over.
