Chapter 3 - THE LAWYER'S LEDGER
The freezing New York wind whipped around the idling vehicles as David Vance, a man I had trusted with my entire life's work for thirty years, walked slowly toward the Bentley.
"Lock the doors, Marcus," I ordered, my heart pounding in my chest.
I pulled Noah close to me, hiding him as best as I could in the darkness of the backseat. The boy was shaking uncontrollably.
David Vance knocked on my tinted window. He didn't look aggressive. He looked exhausted, his tie loose, his face pale under the harsh streetlights. He held up the manila folder, pressing it against the glass.
"Mr. Anderson," Vance called out, his voice muffled. "Open the window. Please. I don't want to hurt you."
"Don't do it, sir," Marcus warned, resting his hand on a heavy flashlight in the console. "Those men in suits are private security. Unregistered. Mercenaries."
I looked at the folder pressed against the glass. I could read the bold black letters printed across the top: ANDERSON HOLDINGS - CAYMAN ISLANDS TRUST.
My blood ran cold. The offshore accounts. The accounts Edward managed.
I rolled the window down exactly one inch.
"What is the meaning of this, David?" I demanded, my voice trembling with rage. "You box my car in on a public street like a common thug?"
"I had to get to you before you went home, Charles," Vance said, his eyes darting nervously up and down the empty street. "Edward bugged your penthouse this morning. He knows you didn't sign the transfer papers. He’s accelerating the timeline."
"Accelerating what?" I snapped.
Vance swallowed hard. He looked past me and saw Noah huddled in the shadows. A profound look of guilt washed over the old lawyer's face.
"He found James last March," Vance confessed, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. "Edward hired a private firm to track a Social Security ping in Queens. He realized James had a family. A wife. A son."
"Noah just told me," I said coldly. "And what did you do, David? Did you help my brother murder my son?"
"No!" Vance pleaded, gripping the edge of the window. "Charles, you have to believe me. Edward told me he was bringing James home. I didn't know he sent a hit squad until it was too late. But James didn't die that night in March."
My breath caught in my throat. I grabbed Vance’s sleeve through the crack in the window. "He's alive?"
"He's in a private psychiatric facility upstate," Vance whispered rapidly. "Edward had him institutionalized under a John Doe alias. He’s keeping him heavily medicated so he can't talk. Edward needed James alive until he could force you to sign the final trust transfer. If you die without signing it, James automatically inherits, even if he's in a hospital. Edward needs you to sign away James's birthright before he... finishes the job."
I stared at the man who had eaten dinner at my table for three decades. The betrayal was so absolute, so suffocating, I couldn't speak.
"Why are you telling me this now?" I finally choked out. "Why didn't you stop him?"
"Because Edward found out about the boy," Vance said, pointing a shaking finger at Noah. "Edward didn't know James had a child until tonight. When his men at the fundraiser saw you run out with a street kid, Edward checked the security footage. He recognized the boy's face. He recognized James."
Vance shoved the manila folder through the window.
"Edward isn't just coming for you anymore, Charles. He's coming for the boy. If Noah is alive, the inheritance passes to him. Edward sent these men to take the child. He paid them half a million dollars to make the boy disappear."
I looked at the four mercenaries standing near the SUV. They weren't Vance's men. They were Edward's.
"And you led them right to us," I spat, my voice dripping with venom.
"I had to," Vance wept. "They were going to kill my wife if I didn't. But I can't let them take a child. Charles, inside that folder is the exact address of the facility where James is being held, and the ledgers proving Edward's embezzlement. Take it. Save your son."
Suddenly, the lead mercenary pulled a suppressed handgun from his jacket.
"Time's up, Vance," the mercenary said coldly. "Step away from the car."
"Marcus, drive!" I roared.
"Hold on!" Marcus shouted.
Instead of trying to squeeze past the SUV in front of us, Marcus threw the massive Bentley into reverse. The heavy luxury car slammed violently into the SUV behind us, shattering their headlights and pushing the vehicle back three feet.
The mercenaries raised their weapons, but before they could fire, Marcus threw the car into drive and cranked the wheel hard to the right. The Bentley jumped the curb, tearing through a chain-link fence bordering an empty construction lot.
Gunfire popped softly in the night, the suppressed bullets shattering our rear window.
I threw myself over Noah, shielding his small body with my own as glass rained down on us.
Marcus drove like a madman, tearing across the dirt lot, busting through a wooden barricade on the other side, and launching us back onto a busy avenue. We wove violently through traffic, running three red lights until the sirens of distant police cars echoed in the night, scaring the mercenaries off.
"Are you hit, sir?" Marcus yelled, checking the rearview mirror.
"No," I gasped, pulling myself up and checking Noah. The boy was terrified, crying silently, but completely unharmed.
I looked down at the manila folder Vance had thrown into my lap.
I opened it.
The first page was a medical file. Patient 404. St. Jude’s Private Care.
The second page was a copy of Edward’s offshore accounts.
And the third page was a photograph that made my heart stop beating.
It was a surveillance photo taken outside the Queens tenement building Noah had told me about. But it wasn't a picture of James or Noah.
It was a picture of a beautiful, exhausted woman carrying a bag of groceries. Noah's mother, Sarah.
But standing directly behind her in the photograph, watching her from the shadows of the alleyway, was David Vance.
And printed at the bottom of the photo, in Vance’s own handwriting, was a terrifying note.
May you like
Target located. Proceeding with extraction of the mother tonight.
Vance hadn't stopped the mercenaries. He had distracted me while Edward’s men went after Sarah.
