Chapter 6 - The Stepbrother’s Shadow
The parking garage beneath Thanksgiving Tower smelled of exhaust fumes and damp concrete.
I parked my father’s sedan in a dimly lit corner slot, leaving the engine running and my service radio clipped to my belt. I didn't go alone, though—Marcus was parked three tiers up in an unmarked SUV with a high-definition dashcam rolling on every exit ramp.
I stepped out into the shadows, my boots clicking against the slick concrete.
"I'm here," I called out into the cavernous space. "Show yourself."
A figure stepped out from behind a concrete support pillar, hands raised to show he was unarmed.
It wasn't the accountant.
It was Chad.
He looked terrible. His designer jacket was wrinkled, his hair unwashed, and his eyes darted nervously toward the exit ramps like a cornered animal.
"What do you want, Chad?" I asked, resting my hand casually near my belt. "Did your mother send you to deliver another threat?"
"Mom doesn't know I'm here," Chad whispered, his voice cracking with panic. "She thinks I'm meeting with Geller. But Geller dropped her case an hour ago when the federal indictments dropped."
"Then why are you here?"
Chad swallowed hard, stepping closer into the pale glow of an overhead fluorescent light. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a heavy, leather-bound ledger with water-stained edges.
"Because she’s going to throw me under the bus," Chad said bitterly, his voice shaking. "She told the prosecutors yesterday that I was the one who forged the signatures on the transfer papers. She said I forced her to put Grandma in that crate to 'manage her behavioral outbursts.'"
I stared at the ledger in his hands. "What is that?"
"It’s her personal black book," Chad said, thrusting the book toward me like it was burning his fingers. "Every bribe she paid to the doctors, every shell company she set up, every threat she made against Rosa and the household staff. It’s all in here. Her handwriting. Her initials."
I took the ledger, flipping it open to a page dated six months ago. There, in Vanessa’s precise, looping cursive, was an itemized list:
Dr. Vance - $50k (Services rendered)
Cemetery Plot 4B - $2,500 (Expedited quiet burial)
Claire's deployment schedule confirmed via military liaison.
"Why are you giving this to me?" I asked, looking up from the pages.
"Because I want out," Chad whispered, tears welling in his eyes. "I didn't want any of this, Claire. She told me if I didn't play along, she'd cut me off and leave me with nothing. I just... I want to go back to Austin. I want to finish school."
I closed the ledger and slid it into my tactical bag.
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"You're going to walk into the U.S. Attorney’s office right now," I told him, my voice cold and absolute. "You're going to hand them this book, you're going to give a full confession, and you're going to testify against your mother. That’s your only ticket out of this."
Chad nodded frantically, turning toward the stairs without looking back.
