Chapter 18 - The Fall of the Vances
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The signature was messy, jagged, and executed with pure, bitter hatred, but it was legally binding.
Julian Vance signed away every claim to my premarital property, every right to my father's trust, and entered a formal guilty plea to aggravated domestic battery and corporate fraud. He was sentenced to fourteen years in state prison.
Carol Vance was charged as an accessory to grand larceny and tax evasion, receiving a four-year sentence with mandatory restitution orders that wiped out her remaining personal savings.
Two weeks after the court proceedings concluded, I stood inside Apartment 4B.
The afternoon sun was pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows, reflecting off the freshly polished hardwood floors. The boxes were gone. The bloodstain near the shoe cabinet had been professionally restored, leaving behind no trace of the violence that had occurred there.
I stood by the window, holding a warm cup of coffee, looking out over the city skyline.
For the first time in five years, the air inside my home belonged entirely to me.
My phone chimed on the marble counter behind me.
May you like
I walked over and picked it up. It was a encrypted text message sent from an unlisted satellite server.
MESSAGE: Pier 42. Midnight. Come alone if you want to see your father alive.
