Chapter 8 - The True Mastermind
I pushed Emma and Noah behind me, shielding their small bodies with my own.
I stared up at the woman who had given birth to me, entirely unable to recognize her.
My mother slowly walked down two steps, keeping the gun leveled directly at my chest.
I asked her why she was doing this, why she would threaten the lives of her own grandchildren.
She laughed, a harsh and bitter sound that echoed off the concrete walls.
She confessed that Brent was never the one in debt to the underground gambling syndicate.
Brent was far too cowardly to ever engage with organized crime.
It was my mother who had accrued millions of dollars in illicit gambling debts over the past decade.
She had used Brent as a convenient scapegoat, manipulating his greed to execute the forged deed and the bank fraud.
She needed my retirement funds to finally pay off the violent loan sharks who were threatening her life.
She pointed the gun closer to my face, demanding I open my banking app and initiate the transfer right now.
I told her the police were already on their way, a desperate bluff to buy a few seconds of time.
She sneered, insisting she had jammed the cellular signal in the basement to prevent any outgoing calls.
She pulled back the hammer of the gun, giving me exactly ten seconds to comply.
I reached into my pocket, slowly pulling out my phone to stall her.
Suddenly, the heavy wooden cellar doors above us slammed shut with a deafening crash.
The heavy deadbolt clicked loudly from the outside, locking all of us inside the basement.
My mother spun around in panic, firing a wild shot into the wooden doors.
A voice called out from the other side of the door, muffled but unmistakable.
May you like
It was Brent, and he sounded incredibly terrified.
He yelled that the loan sharks had just arrived at the house, and they were not interested in waiting for the money anymore.
