Chapter 3 - The Unlikely Ally
I didn't hesitate. I grabbed Lily under her arms, scooped her off her feet, and bolted toward the open door of the pickup truck. Evelyn lunged forward, reaching for my coat, but Marcus stepped out of the cab and shoved a massive, rolled-up legal binder directly into her chest, sending her stumbling backward onto the wet grass.
"Touch her again and you're looking at felony assault!" Marcus barked.
"Marcus!" my mother screamed from the porch, her voice dropping its calm demeanor and turning into a raspy, monstrous screech. "You have no business here! Get off my property!"
"Your property ends at the curb, Mrs. Vance!" Marcus yelled back.
I threw Lily into the back seat, scrambled in after her, and slammed the door shut. The black SUV across the street roared into action, executing a violent U-turn across the neighborhood lawns to block the driveway exit. But Marcus was faster. He threw the pickup into reverse, tore backwards across the front lawn, tore up my mother's precious rosebushes, and slammed onto the main street just as the black SUV tried to cut us off.
Tires shrieked as Marcus shifted into drive and slammed his foot on the accelerator. The pickup lurched forward, leaving a trail of black smoke and shredded turf behind us.
In the back seat, Lily buried her face into my waist. I wrapped my arms around her tightly, kissing the top of her head repeatedly. "We're okay. We're okay, Lily. I've got you."
"Are they coming after us?" she sobbed.
I looked out the rear window. The black SUV was turning around, pursuing us at high speed, its high beams flashing menacingly in the morning fog.
"Marcus, who are those people?" I asked frantically, leaning forward toward the front seats. "And why did you stop answering my calls on Tuesday? I thought you took my money and ran!"
Marcus glanced in his rear-view mirror, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. "Your mother bought off my former partner, Clara. They tapped my phone and wiped my hard drives. I had to go dark to secure the actual physical evidence you needed for court today. If I had answered your call, your sister would have known every step of our escape plan."
"What evidence?" I asked, my heart pounding.
Marcus reached into the passenger seat and tossed a heavy, yellow USB drive into my lap. "Audio recordings from your father's estate attorney before he passed away. Your mother didn't just try to keep you trapped out of control—she's been embezzling your father's trust fund meant for you and Lily for the last seven years. The court hearing today wasn't just about custody. She needed you declared mentally incompetent today because the trust automatically pays out to you on Lily's eighth birthday—which is next week."
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I stared at the USB drive in shock. Everything finally made sense. The constant gaslighting, the isolated life, the endless insistence that I was unfit to function in society—it was all a desperate cover-up to hide millions of dollars in stolen inheritance.
"The men in that SUV," Marcus added grimly, "aren't cops. They're private security hired by your sister's fiancé. And they aren't trying to serve papers. They want that drive."
