Chapter 7 - The Desperate Call
I stared down at the heavy envelope resting in the courier’s gloved hand.
“Leah Vance?” the young man asked, checking a digital clipboard.
“That’s me.”
He held out a stylus. “Sign here, please.”
I signed the screen, took the envelope, and watched as he turned back toward his idling delivery van. The seal was stamped with my father’s heavy brass initial—an ornate, sweeping V.
I walked back inside, kicked the heavy oak door shut, and sat down at the kitchen island while Maisie continued sketching dinosaurs with green crayons at the breakfast bar.
I broke the wax seal with my thumb.
Inside was a single sheet of heavy cream stationery, covered in my father’s frantic, jagged handwriting.
Leah,
We need to talk. This has gone far enough. You’re playing a very dangerous game with people who have more resources, more connections, and more legal standing than you will ever comprehend. Call me before noon today, and we can discuss a quiet settlement. Your mother is distraught, and Chelsea’s family is staying at a second-rate motel because of your reckless vindictiveness. Stop the audit, return the title deeds to my office by Tuesday, and I will agree not to countersue for your abandonment of parental duties back in 2021. You know how the courts view your financial instability. Do the smart thing.
— Robert Vance.
A cold, bitter laugh escaped my lips.
Even now, even after being stripped of his estate, caught red-handed embezzling trust funds, and thrown out of his own house by the police, he still tried to bully me. He still thought he could wave a imaginary legal wand and make me cower.
“Who is it, Mom?” Maisie asked, looking up from her green triceratops.
“Just junk mail, bug,” I said, sliding the letter into the recycling bin without a second thought.
My phone buzzed immediately afterward, as if sensing the moment. It was a direct call from an unknown, blocked number.
I swiped to answer and put it on speaker.
“Leah?”
My father’s voice came through the receiver—thin, strained, and stripped of its usual booming authority. The desperation leaked through every syllable, hiding behind a thin veil of forced menace.
“Robert,” I said, keeping my tone completely neutral.
“Don’t play games with me,” he snapped, his temper flaring before he caught himself. “Did you get my letter?”
“I did,” I replied, leaning back against the marble counter. “I liked the part where you threatened to countersue me using your nonexistent legal budget. Very creative, Dad.”
“Listen to me very carefully,” he hissed. “You are destroying this family over a childish grudge. Your grandfather’s trust had clerical errors—errors that my legal team can dismantle in five minutes once I’m back in front of a real judge. If you drop this audit right now, I’ll let you keep your little apartment, and I won't contest your custody status.”
I smiled. It felt good—clean, sharp, and entirely free of fear.
“Dad,” I said softly, “you don’t have a legal team anymore. I checked the corporate retainers this morning. You haven't paid Shaw & Associates in six months because you’ve been funneling the firm’s operating capital into Chelsea’s husband’s failing crypto startup.”
Silence on the other end of the line. Absolute, dead silence.
“How… how do you know that?” he whispered, the panic finally breaking through his armor.
“Because unlike you, I actually read the documents before I sign them,” I said. “The police are compiling the embezzlement report as we speak. Rebecca Shaw is filing the final asset liquidation paperwork for 9:00 AM tomorrow morning. You’re broke, Robert. And worse than that, you’re irrelevant.”
“Leah, wait—!”
I hung up.
May you like
Then I went into the settings menu of my phone, blocked his number, blocked Chelsea’s number, and blocked every single relative who had watched my daughter hit the hardwood floor and stayed silent.
The digital silence that followed was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.
