Chapter 3 - The Ransom Demand
The mechanical voice on the phone repeated the threat one more time.
I screamed into the receiver, demanding to know where my family was.
The caller simply laughed and hung up.
I dropped to my knees in the middle of the trashed motel room.
I looked at the puddle of blood on the floor and tried to convince myself it wasn't Emily's.
I opened the black ledger I had stolen from Vanessa’s closet.
I flipped through the pages, desperate to find a clue about who Greg and Vanessa were working with.
The ledger was filled with offshore account numbers and massive payments to a shell company called Apex Logistics.
I searched the company name on my phone.
The search results revealed that Apex Logistics was a holding company owned by my own mother, Margaret.
My mother was not just an abusive snob.
She was the mastermind behind a massive money-laundering operation using Greg's dental clinics as a front.
They had kidnapped Emily and Lily to silence us.
My phone chimed with a text message.
It was an address for an abandoned warehouse down by the shipping docks, followed by a time.
I had exactly one hour to bring the ledger and the insurance documents to the docks.
I walked out to my car and threw the documents into the trunk.
I stopped by an all-night hardware store and bought a heavy steel crowbar.
I drove toward the shipping district, feeling a cold, hollow rage replacing my fear.
I parked three blocks away from the warehouse and approached on foot.
The building was massive, decaying, and completely silent.
I slipped through a rusted side door and stepped into the darkness.
I heard the sound of Lily crying softly from the center of the warehouse floor.
I gripped the crowbar tightly and stepped out of the shadows.
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But the person standing over my tied-up wife and child was not Greg.
It was my brother, Mark, and he was pointing a loaded pistol directly at my chest.
