Chapter 4 - The Extraction
Getting a hostage out of a heavily monitored house in a quiet suburban neighborhood required precision. Wyatt didn't just have money; he had resources. He hired a private security firm composed of former military operatives. We couldn't just kick the door down—my parents had installed security cameras everywhere, no doubt paid for by Elias’s stolen money. We needed a distraction.
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, exactly three weeks after the attack, the plan was set into motion.
Sarah Jenkins filed a massive civil lawsuit against my parents and Melanie, demanding an emergency deposition at the downtown courthouse regarding the assault. Because of the sheer magnitude of the lawsuit and the threat of frozen assets, my parents and Melanie had to attend.
We watched from a black SUV parked two blocks away as my father’s sedan pulled out of the driveway. Melanie was in the passenger seat, looking thoroughly annoyed, while my mother sat in the back.
“They’re clear,” Wyatt said into a two-way radio.
“Copy that. Moving in,” the voice of the security team leader crackled back.
A disguised medical transport van pulled up to the house. Three men in paramedic uniforms approached the front door. Within seconds, they had bypassed the smart lock and slipped inside. Wyatt and I watched the live feed from a drone hovering high above the neighborhood. My heart was in my throat. If they had moved Elias, if he was already gone...
Ten agonizing minutes passed. Then, the front door opened.
The operatives rolled out a wheelchair. Sitting in it, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, was Elias Davis. He looked even more frail than he had in the window, but as they loaded him into the van, he looked up at the camera with eyes that were sharp and surprisingly lucid.
The van drove directly to Wyatt’s secure penthouse. When they wheeled Elias into the living room, I stood up, leaning heavily on my cane.
The old man looked at me, his eyes zeroing in on the scar running through my eyebrow. Tears welled in his pale blue eyes.
“You have your grandmother’s chin,” Elias croaked, his voice raspy from years of disuse. “I am so sorry, Sadie. I tried to bang on the window. I tried to stop him.”
“It’s okay, Uncle Elias,” I said, kneeling beside his wheelchair and taking his fragile, trembling hands in mine. “You’re safe now. They can never hurt you again.”
Over the next few hours, with Sarah and a court stenographer present, Elias poured out a decade of horrors. He detailed the psychological abuse, the forged signatures, the isolation. He confirmed the existence of the trust and how my parents had threatened to put him in a state-run asylum if he ever spoke to anyone.
But the most damning piece of evidence was what he pulled from the lining of his old winter coat.
“Your father thought he destroyed all the copies of the original will,” Elias said, handing a crumpled, sealed envelope to Sarah. “But I hid the master copy. It has the original notary seal. And I wrote down every single account number they forced me to empty.”
Sarah reviewed the documents, a predator’s smile spreading across her face. “This is a smoking gun. We don’t just have them for assault, Sadie. We have them for elder abuse, kidnapping, wire fraud, and grand larceny.”
Wyatt stood behind me, his hands resting gently on my shoulders. “What’s the play, Sarah?”
“We let them think they’re winning,” I said, staring at the envelope. The little girl who just wanted her family’s love had died on that concrete sidewalk. The woman who remained was ready for war. “They’ve been playing the victims in the press. Let’s invite them to a settlement meeting. Let them think Wyatt is paying them off to make the assault charges go away.”
“A trap,” Wyatt grinned.
May you like
“A slaughter,” I corrected.
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