Chapter 14 - The Counterattack|
Mateo sprinted all the way back to the community center, his lungs burning. When he burst through the front doors, the atmosphere was chaotic. Volunteers were frantically packing boxes, and several of the younger children were crying in the hallway.
"Mariana!" Mateo yelled, pushing through the crowd until he found her in her office, furiously typing on her computer while holding a phone to her ear.
"No, Judge Ramirez, you can't grant an emergency removal order without a hearing!" Mariana pleaded into the phone. "This is a targeted harassment campaign—hello? Hello?!"
She slammed the phone down and buried her face in her hands.
"Mariana, look at this," Mateo said, slapping the envelope from Elena onto the desk.
She looked up, startled. "Where did you get this?"
"I met with my biological mother," Mateo confessed, ignoring Mariana's shocked gasp. "She didn't abandon me. Her father faked my death to hide me from her. But her lawyer, Vance, is the one running this whole smear campaign. He told me if I don't surrender to him by 5:00 PM, he’s sending CPS to take all the kids."
Mariana frantically tore through the documents. Her eyes darted back and forth across the medical records and the deathbed confession.
"This... this changes everything," Mariana breathed, a spark of dangerous fire returning to her eyes. "If Vance is operating on behalf of a trust board that is enforcing illegal demands, it’s extortion. But we need proof of his threat, Mateo. It's just your word against a high-powered attorney."
"I don't have a recording," Mateo cursed himself, pacing the room. "But there’s a camera in the diner. A security camera above the cash register. It might have caught audio if he was loud enough."
Mariana looked at the clock. It was 3:15 PM.
"We have less than two hours," Mariana said, grabbing her car keys. "Vargas owes me a favor. If he can pull that security footage and get a warrant for Vance's communications with CPS, we can prove malicious intent."
"What about the kids here?"
"Lock the gates," Mariana ordered the senior volunteer standing in the doorway. "No one gets in without a warrant. Not the press, not CPS, nobody."
As they rushed out to the car, a sleek silver van pulled up to the curb. Four men in dark suits stepped out, holding clipboards.
May you like
"CPS," one of them shouted over the fence. "Open the gates!"
Vance had lied. He didn't wait until 5:00.
