Chapter 4 - The Price of a Soul
By noon, the internet was already beginning to churn. Carl hadn't waited for midnight. A blind item had appeared on a major gossip blog: Billionaire Tech CEO Hiding Runaway Child? The Dark Secrets of the Crawford Estate.
Benjamin ignored his vibrating phone, which was lighting up with panicked texts from his board of directors. Instead, he drove his Bentley into the worst neighborhood in the city, parking in front of a crumbling, graffiti-covered apartment building. He stepped out of the car in a sharp, tailored suit, looking like an alien on the cracked pavement.
He kicked open the door to apartment 4B without knocking.
Inside, the air smelled of stale beer and cheap cigarettes. A burly man with a unkempt beard—Carl—jumped up from a stained sofa. A thin, nervous-looking woman, Aunt Rebecca, stood trembling near the kitchen.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” Carl shouted, reaching for a baseball bat leaning against the wall.
“I’m the man whose patience you have completely exhausted,” Benjamin said, stepping fully into the room. He didn’t raise his voice, but the sheer, oppressive power of his presence made Carl freeze.
“You got our message?” Carl sneered, trying to regain his bravado. “Ten million. Or the cops kick your door down tomorrow with a media circus right behind them. Kidnapping a minor carries a heavy sentence, Crawford.”
“You kicked an eight-year-old girl out into a thunderstorm with twenty dollars,” Benjamin stated, his eyes locked on Rebecca. “She was sleeping on cardboard. She was starving.”
Rebecca looked away, ashamed, but Carl laughed. “Kids are resilient. Besides, she’s not your problem. Pay the toll, or give the brat back.”
Benjamin pulled a thick manila folder from his jacket and tossed it onto the coffee table. It landed with a heavy thud.
“I had my tech team look into your digital footprint last night, Carl,” Benjamin said coldly. “You’ve been running a synthetic identity fraud ring for three years. Rebecca, you’ve been cashing Chloe’s mother’s disability checks since she died, which is federal wire fraud. I have every IP address, every bank routing number, and every forged signature. I already sent a copy to the FBI.”
Carl’s face drained of color. The baseball bat slipped from his hands.
“You’re bluffing,” Carl stammered.
“I am Benjamin Crawford,” he replied softly. “I don't bluff. I ruin people. If you ever breathe a word about Chloe again, if you ever come within a hundred miles of my house, I won’t just send you to federal prison. I will make sure you never see daylight again.”
Benjamin turned to leave, but as he reached the door, Carl, desperate and cornered, pulled a switchblade from his pocket and lunged.
Benjamin didn’t even flinch. His driver, a former Navy SEAL who had followed him upstairs, stepped through the doorway and disarmed Carl in a blur of motion, slamming the grifter face-first into the drywall.
“Have a pleasant afternoon,” Benjamin said, adjusting his cuffs, and walked back down to his car.
He had neutralized the threat. He had won. But as his Bentley sped back toward the estate, an unfamiliar sense of dread washed over him. He pulled out his phone and checked his interior security cameras.
The pantry was empty. The kitchen was empty.
May you like
Chloe was gone.
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