Chapter 7 - Blood and Ink
Before heading to the airfield, I drove directly to my parents’ estate in the hills.
The sprawling brick mansion, usually alive with weekend family gatherings, stood silent. Inside the study, my father sat behind his oak desk, his face lined with profound exhaustion. Beside him sat Marlene, clutching a cup of cold tea, her eyes swollen completely shut from weeping.
On the desk lay Trevor’s signed financial papers, which my forensic accountants had pulled within the hour.
"He took out a second mortgage on Marlene’s house," my father said, his voice trembling with an old man’s quiet, lethal fury. "He used my name as a fraudulent co-signer on three separate bridge loans. The man has completely liquidated my daughter’s future."
Marlene looked up, her lips trembling. "David... I’m sorry. For the pool. For everything. When Brock hurt Wren... Trevor told me that if I apologized to you, it would look like an admission of guilt in court. He told me you were trying to destroy our marriage. I was so terrified of losing him that I let him poison my son."
I walked over to the desk and laid Brock’s football helmet—still covered in shattered glass dust—directly in front of her.
"Trevor threw this through my window four hours ago, Marlene," I said coldly. "He left your son’s armor in the dirt. He doesn't love Brock. He loves the reflection of his own vanity in Brock’s jersey."
Marlene flinched, staring at the scarred plastic helmet, her hand slowly reaching out to touch the scratches on the visor. A sudden, deep sob tore through her ribs.
"What are they going to do to him, David?" she cried, clutching my sleeve. "Kyle is a monster. When Kyle was twenty, he beat a man nearly to death in an alley. What is he doing to my baby?"
"He's putting him in an iron cage for Vance Sterling’s entertainment," I answered, looking my father directly in the eye. "Dad, I need your power of attorney for the family trust, and Marlene, I need you to sign an emergency affidavit of parental revocation right now. We take the corporate jet north in twenty minutes."
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My father didn't hesitate. He pulled out his fountain pen, his weathered hand steady as he scrawled his signature across the transfer documents.
"Bring my grandson back, David," the old man whispered, his eyes blazing with an authority Trevor had never possessed. "And whatever you have to break to bring him out... break it."
