Chapter 2 - The Call
I stood up slowly, keeping Lily firmly in my left arm. My right hand reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my phone.
Jared scoffed, taking a long sip from his glass. "Who are you calling? The police? Go ahead. It's my word against yours, Ryan. My mother owns this town's judicial board, and my firm funds half the precinct's charitable events. You think some beat cop is going to arrest me for giving a child a long-overdue reality check?"
"I'm not calling the police," I said calmly.
I hit speed dial 1. I put the phone on speaker.
The line rang twice before a deep, authoritative voice echoed through the dining room speaker. "Ryan? Is everything alright? You rarely call during off-hours unless it’s urgent."
"Marcus," I said, my voice steady, devoid of panic, but filled with absolute iron. "I am at my mother-in-law’s house. Jared just struck Lily across the face hard enough to knock her off her chair and cut her lip. Claudia just publicly validated it."
There was a silence on the other end of the phone so total, so absolute, that even Jared stopped swirling his glass.
Marcus Vance was not a police officer. He was the founder of Vance & Sterling, the largest corporate litigation firm in the state, and the primary benefactor behind the county's child protection advocate network. More importantly, he was my former mentor and the man whose life I had saved five years ago when I uncovered massive fraud inside a firm trying to bankrupt his family estate. He was also a man who possessed a legal radius that could flatten entire corporations within a forty-eight-hour window.
"Is Lily okay?" Marcus’s voice dropped an octave into a register of terrifying calm.
"She’s bleeding and shaking, but she’s in my arms," I replied. "I need three things. First, an ambulance dispatched directly to Claudia Vance’s estate address—not to process an emergency, but to document her injuries on an official medical ledger immediately. Second, I need a court injunction filed before midnight prohibiting any member of this family from coming within five hundred feet of my daughter. Third, I want the forensic audit on Jared’s logistics company started tonight."
Jared’s face drained of color so fast he looked like he’d seen a ghost. "Wait... what forensic audit? Who is this?"
"You have ten minutes before my personal transport arrives, Ryan," Marcus said, ignoring Jared entirely. "Keep your phone on. The medical unit is already rolling. Do not speak to them. Do not engage. Let the paper trail begin."
The call disconnected.
Claudia stood up, her polite facade cracking into sharp lines of rage. "How dare you drag outside people into our family matters! You are in my home, Ryan! You came here on my generosity!"
"Your generosity ended the second your son put his hands on my daughter," I said, looking her dead in the eye.
I turned to Sarah. She was still sitting there, frozen, tears streaming silently down her face.
"Sarah," I said softly. "Get your coat. We are leaving."
"Sarah, you sit right there," Claudia snapped, her tone commanding, hardened by years of unquestioned dominance over her children. "If you walk out that door with him, don't you ever think about coming back. You will be cut off from the family estate entirely. Not a single cent."
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Sarah looked up, her eyes wide with terror. She looked at her mother, then at Jared, and finally at Lily, who was sobbing softly into my shoulder, holding her blood-stained napkin against her lip.
"Sarah," I repeated, gentler this time. "Choose."
