Chapter 6 - The Ultimatum in the Driveway
Trevor stopped two feet from the driver's door, his chest heaving, his muscles coiled like overwound springs. I caught up to him, grabbing his arm tightly, anchoring him to the pavement.
"What message?" Trevor growled, his voice vibrating with pure hatred.
Julian took his sweet time adjusting his gold wristwatch before looking up at us. "Monica is currently staying at my estate in Blue Ridge. She’s... shall we say, a bit fragile after her little performance at your daughter’s party yesterday."
"You took her money, Julian," I said, stepping beside Trevor, my voice dead calm. "You manipulated a sick woman into committing felony fraud against her own mother."
Julian’s smirk flickered for a fraction of a second, replaced by a cold, calculating glint in his eyes. "Manipulated? Please, Bethany. Monica came to me. She was desperate. Her firm was ready to turn her over to the bar association. I simply offered her a financial structure to protect her assets."
"Her mother's assets," Trevor spat. "You stole my mother's home!"
"A technicality," Julian dismissed with a wave of his hand. "Here's the deal, Trevor. Monica is willing to execute a full release of the power of attorney and surrender her claims to the Morrison Family Trust."
Trevor frowned, caught off guard. "What's the catch?"
Julian leaned closer to the open window, his voice dropping into a low, threatening register. "The catch is that you drop the civil fraud filing by five o'clock today. You tell Marcus Sterling to withdraw the affidavit of forgery. You let the Cayman transfer stand as a 'prior family gift,' and Monica walks away into rehab in California. No police. No headlines. No scandal for the Morrison name."
"And if we don't?" I asked.
Julian smiled—a cold, predatory expression that reached nowhere near his eyes. "If you don't, Monica files an immediate suit alleging that Trevor and Bethany Morrison have been physically abusing Dorothy for months to gain control of her estate. She’s already drafted the sworn affidavits. She’s got pictures of bruises on Dorothy’s arms from her fall last month."
My blood ran cold. "Dorothy fell in her garden six weeks ago! Trevor carried her to the emergency room!"
"Doesn't matter what happened, Bethany," Julian sneered softly. "What matters is what a judge sees on paper when a daughter claims her brother and nurse sister-in-law are isolating an elderly woman for financial gain. Child Protective Services will be called. Adult Protective Services will open an investigation. You're a school nurse, right, Bethany? How long do you keep your license once an elder abuse investigation hits the local news?"
Trevor let out a roar of rage, lunging toward the window. Julian rolled the window up halfway in a flash, chuckling as Trevor’s hands slammed against the glass.
"Five o'clock, Morrison!" Julian called through the glass, shifting the BMW into drive. "Drop the charges, or your wife’s career is over by morning!"
The silver sports car tore away from the curb, its tires squealing against the quiet suburban street, leaving us standing in the exhaust fumes.
Trevor turned to me, his eyes wide with absolute horror. "Bethany... your job. Your license."
I stood on the warm asphalt, looking down the street where Julian’s car had vanished. My heart was pounding, my hands were cold, but beneath the fear, something new was hardening inside me.
For three months, I had let Monica cut me down because I was afraid of making waves. I had kept quiet to protect a party, to protect a Sunday dinner, to protect a family reputation.
And it had brought a predator to my driveway threatening my livelihood and my children.
"We aren't dropping anything, Trevor," I said, turning to look my husband straight in the eye.
May you like
"Bethany, he'll destroy your career!"
"He thinks he's playing chess with suburban amateurs, Trevor," I said, pulling my phone from my pocket and tapping Marcus Sterling's speed dial. "He doesn't realize I’ve been an emergency room and school nurse for twelve years. I document everything."
