Chapter 7 - THE TRAIN STATION LOCKER
The digital alert on my phone screen felt like a physical blow to the chest.
Withdrawal Attempt: $2,500,000. Account: Reed Urban Partners Master Holding. Authorization Code: MM-482.
The code belonged to my mother, Margaret. She was listed as a silent partner on the corporate charter—a formality I had insisted on eleven years ago when I believed she had remortgaged her home to fund my dream. I hadn’t changed the banking protocols yet, believing the crisis with Julian and Warren was my only front.
Answer One, Open Two. I had just proven my father wasn’t a thief, and Julian Vance had been dealt with by his own mother. So why was my mother suddenly attempting to drain two and a half million dollars from my company? Where was she running?
I didn't call her. A phone call would give her time to invent a lie.
I called Elias Thorne, the catering magnate who owed me a favor.
“Elias, I need a private security contractor,” I said rapidly, pacing the lobby of the school while Mrs. Gable brought Sadie and June out of the office. “Someone who can trace an IP address and a physical location from a banking ping in less than five minutes.”
“I have a guy,” Elias said immediately, sensing the panic in my voice. “Text me the routing information.”
I scooped June into my arms, hugging her so tightly she squeaked in protest. I pulled Sadie against my side, burying my face in her hair. They were safe. The police had taken Beverly away. But the betrayal wasn't over.
Ten minutes later, as I was buckling the girls into my car, Elias called back.
“The withdrawal attempt bounced off a secure server, Allison,” Elias reported, his voice grim. “But my guy traced the physical location of the device initiating the transfer. It’s a public Wi-Fi network at Union Station in D.C. Near the Amtrak terminals.”
She was leaving the city.
“Thank you, Elias.”
I drove straight to my sister’s house in Bethesda, dropping the girls off with strict instructions not to open the door for anyone. My sister, fiercely protective and completely outside the Pike family drama, locked the deadbolts behind me.
I sped toward downtown D.C., my mind a chaotic whirlwind of grief and fury. My mother had always been quiet, unassuming, the perfect supportive widow. She had cried with me over Warren’s cruelty. She had cheered my secret successes. Why would she try to destroy me now?
I parked illegally outside Union Station and sprinted through the massive, vaulted concourse. The station was a sea of afternoon commuters, tourists, and luggage.
I scanned the crowds near the Amtrak terminals, my heart pounding in my ears.
And then I saw her.
My mother was sitting on a wooden bench near the long-term luggage lockers, holding a small, nondescript black duffel bag on her lap. She was aggressively typing on a sleek, new laptop—not the ancient desktop she kept at her house.
I didn't yell. I didn't cause a scene. I walked up behind her and gently placed my hand over the laptop screen, snapping it shut.
My mother jumped, a violent, terrified spasm. She looked up, her eyes wide, the color draining instantly from her face.
“Allison,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
“The bank flagged the transfer, Mom,” I said, sitting down next to her on the bench. My voice was eerily calm, devoid of the screaming rage I felt inside. “Two and a half million dollars. Where are you going?”
My mother looked wildly around the crowded terminal, clutching the black duffel bag to her chest as if it were a shield.
“You don't understand, Allison,” she stammered, tears springing to her eyes. “I have to leave. If I don't give him the money, he’s going to kill me.”
I frowned, entirely confused. “Give who the money? Julian? His mother already took his company, Mom. He has no power anymore.”
“Not Julian,” a voice said from the shadows behind the luggage lockers.
A man stepped out into the harsh fluorescent light of the concourse.
He was wearing a cheap, wrinkled windbreaker, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, and a surgical mask covering the lower half of his face. But I didn't need to see his face to recognize the posture, the arrogance, the desperate, cornered energy.
Warren.
Reversal. Warren hadn't fled the city after I humiliated him in my office. He hadn't gone to the police. He had gone straight to my mother’s house.
Warren pulled back his jacket, revealing the dull black grip of a handgun tucked into his waistband.
“Hello, Allison,” Warren sneered, stepping closer, keeping his voice low so the passing commuters wouldn't hear. “Your mother was just helping me collect my alimony early.”
My blood turned to ice. “You held my mother hostage?”
“She was remarkably cooperative once I explained the situation,” Warren smiled, a sick, twisted expression. “I told her that if she didn't use her legacy access codes to wire me two and a half million dollars to an untraceable crypto account, I was going to pay a visit to Sadie and June’s school.”
He had used my children’s lives to force my mother to drain my company.
“You’re a monster,” I breathed, standing up, placing myself between Warren and my mother.
“I’m a man who was promised three million dollars from a family trust, and you ruined it!” Warren hissed, spit flying onto his surgical mask. “My mother is in jail because of you! I have nothing! So I’m taking my cut, and I’m getting on a train to Montreal. Tell her to open the laptop and finish the transfer, Allison. Now.”
He rested his hand on the grip of the gun. We were in a crowded train station. If he pulled that weapon, innocent people would die.
I looked at the black duffel bag clutched to my mother’s chest. I looked at the heavy, vintage gold pocket watch resting in my purse.
“Okay, Warren,” I said slowly, raising my hands in a placating gesture. “You win. We’ll make the transfer.”
I turned to my mother. “Mom, open the bag.”
My mother looked at me, terrified. “Allison, no...”
“Open the bag, Mom,” I repeated, my voice hard, commanding.
Trembling, she unzipped the black duffel bag.
It wasn't filled with clothes for a getaway.
It was filled with heavy, solid bricks of cash. The half-million dollars Julian’s mother had given her twelve years ago. My mother had never spent it. She had never given it to me. She had hoarded the guilt money in a safety deposit box for a decade, letting me believe she had sacrificed everything, while I built Reed Urban Partners with sheer, grueling debt and sweat equity.
I reached into the bag and grabbed a heavy stack of hundred-dollar bills.
I didn't hand it to Warren.
I turned and hurled the stack of cash high into the air, straight into the middle of the crowded train concourse.
Hundreds of crisp bills rained down over the commuters.
“FREE MONEY!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Chaos erupted instantly. Dozens of people surged forward, shouting, diving for the cash, creating a massive, frantic mob between Warren, my mother, and me.
May you like
Warren panicked. He reached for his gun, but the surging crowd bumped into him, knocking him off balance.
I didn't hesitate. I grabbed my mother’s arm, hauling her up from the bench, and ran in the opposite direction, sprinting toward the heavy glass doors of the station exit, leaving Warren drowning in a sea of greedy commuters and his own shattered illusions.
