Chapter 2 - The Setup
I stared at the phone in absolute disbelief.
Federal agents finding drugs in a house owned by my LLC meant the government could seize all my corporate assets.
Brandon was screaming hysterically that heavily armed DEA agents were tearing the living room apart.
Amber could be heard sobbing loudly in the background, begging the officers not to handcuff her.
"What did you do, Brandon?" I demanded, my voice cold and steady despite the racing of my heart.
"I didn't do anything, I swear to God!" he yelled back, sounding like a terrified little boy again.
"They're saying the drugs belong to Redwood Capital, they're looking for the owner of the LLC!" he panicked.
I ended the call immediately and dialed my lawyer, Vance.
I explained the situation to Vance in less than thirty seconds.
Vance was silent for a terrifying moment before telling me this was a classic cartel setup.
Someone had planted those drugs specifically to frame my company and force a federal asset freeze.
If my assets were frozen, all my ongoing construction projects would default, destroying my forty-year legacy overnight.
I realized with sick clarity that Brandon wasn't smart enough to orchestrate a federal drug frame-up.
But his wife, Amber, had an older brother who worked as a defense attorney for some very dangerous clients in Houston.
Amber had planted the drugs to blackmail me into signing the actual deed over to them.
She knew the federal government would come after the legal owner of the house, not the residents.
I grabbed my car keys and drove straight toward my bank instead of the house.
I needed to move my liquid capital into a secure offshore holding account before the feds issued a freeze order.
I walked into the massive glass lobby of the Texas Commerce Bank and went straight to the manager's office.
Mr. Harrison, a man I had done business with for twenty years, looked at me with pale, nervous skin.
"Franklin, I am so sorry, but I can't authorize any wire transfers for you today," Harrison stammered nervously.
I slammed my fist on his desk, demanding to know if the federal government had already contacted him.
Harrison shook his head and pulled a thick legal document from his desk drawer.
"It's not the government, Franklin, it's your son," the bank manager whispered.
Harrison slid the document across the polished wood toward me.
"Brandon came in an hour ago with a notarized medical power of attorney," he explained.
I stared at the paperwork bearing my forged signature and a fake doctor's evaluation.
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They had legally declared me mentally incompetent due to early-onset dementia.
Brandon had already drained completely every single penny of my fifty million dollar fortune.
