Chapter 3 - The Federal Knock
The color completely drained from Roland’s face. The glass of scotch in his hand trembled so violently that the ice cubes rattled against the crystal.
"You... you called the feds on your own parents?!" Roland screamed, his voice cracking with a sudden, desperate panic. "We are your family, Nadine! You can't do this!"
"I didn't call anyone, Dad," I replied, taking a step back toward the door. "Sterling Holdings called them. When you commit nearly a million dollars in structural damage to a corporate asset, it triggers automatic federal reporting. I couldn't stop them even if I wanted to. Which, for the record, I don't."
Mallory stood up, her silk robe fluttering around her. "Mom! Do something! She's lying! She has to pay my debt! The lenders said they’re coming here tonight!"
"Shut up, Mallory!" Roland snapped, his composure entirely crumbling. He glared at me, his eyes wide with terror. "Nadine... listen to me. You call this Sterling company right now. You tell them it was an accident! You tell them it was a misunderstanding!"
"An accident?" I laughed—a cold, clear sound that filled the room. "You brought two nine-pound sledgehammers and three cans of spray paint at two in the morning. You looked straight into the security cameras while you did it. There is no misunderstanding."
Before Roland could respond, a sharp, heavy pounding echoed through the condo door.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
"Federal Marshals! Open the door!" a loud, authoritative voice boomed from the hallway.
Beatrice shrieked, clutching her chest. Mallory backed away toward her bedroom like a terrified animal. Roland stood frozen, staring at the front door as if it were a portal to hell.
I walked over to the door, unlocked it, and pulled it wide open.
Four armed federal marshals stood in the hallway, flanked by two local police detectives. The lead marshal, a tall man with a stern jaw holding a set of legal documents, looked at me.
"Nadine Vance?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied. "The individuals you are looking for are in the living room."
The marshals pushed past me into the condo.
"Roland Vance! Beatrice Vance!" the lead officer announced, pulling out steel handcuffs. "You are under arrest for felony destruction of commercial property, interstate conspiracy, and structural endangerment. You have the right to remain silent."
"Get your hands off me!" Beatrice screamed as a female marshal pulled her arms behind her back, snapping the cuffs into place. "Nadine! Tell them! Tell them you're our daughter!"
"She knows," I said quietly, watching the steel close around my mother's wrists. "That's why she isn't stopping them."
Roland was forced to his knees near the sofa as the marshals cuffed him. He looked up at me, his eyes filled with a mixture of bitter rage and absolute terror. "You monster! You set us up!"
"No, Dad," I whispered, leaning down so only he could hear me. "You set yourselves up the day you decided my life was worth less than Mallory’s debts."
As the officers dragged my screaming parents down the hallway, Mallory stood in the center of the living room, weeping hysterically.
"Nadine! What about me?!" Mallory cried out, holding her phone. "The lenders! They're going to take my condo! They're going to hurt me!"
I turned to look at my golden-child sister.
"You should probably start packing, Mallory," I said smoothly. "Because as part of the forensic audit I conducted on your crypto-gambling accounts three days ago... I sent a complete copy of your illegal offshore transactions to the IRS."
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Mallory froze, her crying instantly stopping as her jaw dropped in absolute horror.
"Happy birthday, sister," I said, and walked out the door into the morning sun.
