Chapter 4 - THE GOLDEN SON
I shoved the heavy glass door of the body shop office open so hard it slammed against the drywall, shattering an acrylic calendar frame hanging on the wall.
The loud country music instantly ceased.
Inside the air-conditioned office, sitting behind a massive walnut desk, was my thirty-two-year-old brother, Wayne. He was wearing an expensive leather racing jacket, a gold chain gleaming against his collarbone, holding a glass of high-end bourbon in one hand. Sitting on the leather sofa beside him was a younger woman in a designer jumpsuit, surrounded by shopping bags from high-end boutiques.
Wayne blinked through the glare of the overhead fluorescent lights, his face flushing with irritation as he prepared to yell at the intruder.
"What the hell is your problem—" Wayne cut himself off instantly. His mouth remained half-open, the glass of bourbon freezing halfway to his lips. His face drained of color so fast he looked like he was about to vomit onto his desk.
"Hello, Wayne," I said smoothly, closing the glass door quietly behind me, stepping into the center of the office.
"Susanna?" Wayne stammered, dropping his glass onto the desk, spilling amber liquor across a pile of vehicle titles. He scrambled out of his leather chair, his eyes darting frantically past me toward the dark gravel lot outside. "What... what are you doing here? You're supposed to be in Boston!"
"Dallas, actually," I replied, taking a slow, deliberate step toward his desk. "My flight was canceled due to the storm. So I decided to grab a bowl of soup at Catfish Hollow."
Wayne’s throat hitched. A visible bead of sweat broke out along his hairline, despite the freezing air conditioning in the room. The young woman on the sofa looked between the two of us, sensing the sudden, dangerous shift in the atmosphere, and slowly stood up, grabbing her designer bags.
"Wayne?" the woman asked, her voice high and nervous. "Who is this?"
"Get out, Tiffany," Wayne spat, his voice tight and frantic, his eyes never leaving my face. "Go wait in the truck."
Tiffany didn't need to be told twice. She scurried past me, squeezing through the door and slipping out into the night air.
Once the door clicked shut, the silence inside the office became absolute. I walked over to the desk, picked up a sleek leather-bound binder lying next to Wayne’s phone, and flipped it open. It contained invoices for high-end automotive parts, racing equipment, and receipts for luxury weekend rentals in Miami and Las Vegas.
"One point two million dollars, Wayne," I said, my voice deathly calm. "I spent seven years wiring fifteen thousand dollars a month to First National Bank under the assumption that our mother was living in a private cottage with twenty-four-hour medical care."
Wayne swallowed hard, taking a backward step until his spine hit the window frame behind his desk. "Susanna... listen to me. It's not what it looks like. You don't understand how hard things have been down here!"
"You put our seventy-eight-year-old mother in a tool shed!" I roared, slamming my flat hand down onto the walnut desk so violently that his desk lamp clattered to the floor. "You made her wash dishes at a roadside diner for minimum wage so she could pay you three hundred dollars a month in rent! While you drive a seventy-thousand-dollar truck and spend weekends in Miami!"
"She wanted to work!" Wayne screamed back, his face contorting into an ugly, defensive mask. "She was bored! She said she wanted to get out of the house! I didn't force her to do anything!"
"She has bone-on-bone osteoarthritis in her hip!" I yelled back, tears of pure rage burning in my eyes. "Her hands are bleeding from harsh chemicals! She didn't even know I was sending money because you told her I abandoned her after dad died!"
Wayne took a sharp, shallow breath, realizing his excuses were completely useless. His expression hardened, dropping the fearful act, replacing it with a bitter, entitled snarl that made him look completely unrecognizable.
"You left us!" Wayne shouted, pointing a thick, grease-stained finger at my face. "You packed your bags nine years ago and ran off to play corporate queen while Dad died of cancer! You think tossing a check at us every month makes you a saint? You weren't here, Susanna! You weren't here for the hospital visits, the bills, the funeral, or the debt! You owed me that money! That one point two million was my payment for staying behind!"
I stared at my brother, looking past his expensive jacket, his gold chain, and his custom truck, seeing the hollow, rotting core of a parasite who had justified abusing his own mother under the guise of family sacrifice.
"You didn't stay behind to help Mom, Wayne," I said softly, the fiery anger in my chest settling into a cold, unbreakable resolve. "You stayed behind because you were too lazy to build a life of your own. And you used Mom as a human shield to rob me."
I reached into my blazer pocket, pulled out my phone, and unlocked the screen, revealing an active call with my personal legal counsel and the Chief of Police for Pulaski County—a man who sat on the board of one of Cardinal Health's regional charity foundations.
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"Every wire transfer I sent was marked specifically as a healthcare trust allocation for Mattie Bird," I said, showing him the screen. "That makes every dollar you diverted a federal financial crime, elder abuse, and grand larceny."
Wayne’s eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated terror as the voice of Police Chief Thomas crackled through the speaker: "We have two patrol units turning onto Crenshaw Avenue right now, Susanna."
