Chapter 19 - Tyler's Desperate Plea
Two days later, the county courthouse in the valley below was besieged by local reporters and camera crews. The story had broken wide open across the state: the viral video of the grandmother’s cake explosion had been matched by investigative journalists with Tyler’s midnight arrest for armed home invasion. The contrast was sensational—the spoiled, smug influencer exposed as a desperate criminal collaborating with violent debt collectors to rob his own grandmother.
I sat in the small, sterile consultation room of the county detention facility, separated from Tyler by a thick pane of scratched reinforced glass.
When the deputy escorted Tyler into the booth, I barely recognized him. The designer clothes, the styled hair, the arrogant smirk that had defined him on his social media videos were entirely gone. He wore an orange prison jumpsuit that hung loose on his frame. His right eye was swollen with a deep purple bruise—the reality of county lockup had clearly set in within forty-eight hours.
Tyler picked up the black plastic telephone with trembling hands, pressing it against his ear. His knuckles were raw and red.
I picked up my receiver, looking at him without pity, but without malice.
"Gran..." Tyler sobbed into the receiver, pressing his forehead against the cold glass. "Gran, please. You have to bail me out. You have to talk to the judge. They set bail at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Dad can't pay it—his bank accounts were frozen yesterday!"
"Your father’s accounts were frozen because he is under federal indictment for wire fraud, Tyler," I said, my voice measured and calm through the speaker.
"Gran, you don't understand what it's like in here!" Tyler wailed, tears streaming down his bruised face. "They know who Marcus is! Marcus has friends in here, Gran! They told me if Julian Vance doesn't get his money back, I’m not going to survive until the preliminary hearing! They cornered me in the yard yesterday! Look at my face!"
"I am looking at your face, Tyler," I replied. "And I see the boy who stood in my ballroom while seventy guests laughed at my humiliation. I see the boy who set a firecracker inside my cake and shoved a camera into my eyes while I choked on smoke and ash."
"It was just a prank!" Tyler cried, pounding his fist against the metal shelf. "It was just content, Gran! Everybody does it online! I didn't mean to hurt you! I was just trying to build my brand so I didn't end up broke like Dad!"
"You didn't do it to build a brand, Tyler. You did it because you hold no respect for human life. You saw an old woman who loved you, who cooked your meals, who paid your college tuition when your father defaulted, and you saw an easy target. You thought that because I am eighty years old, I am powerless. You thought I was disposable."
"I'm sorry!" Tyler shrieked, pressing his palms against the glass. "I swear to God, Gran, I'm sorry! If you pay the bond, I'll delete all the channels! I'll come back and work on the garden! I'll paint the fences! Just get me out of here! Please don't let them kill me!"
I looked at him, feeling the heavy weight of generations of Montgomery grief pressing down upon my shoulders.
"The bond will not be paid, Tyler," I said softly.
He froze, his jaw dropping in utter disbelief. "What?"
"You broke the law, Tyler. You entered my home with a weapon. You brought a violent man into my sanctuary. The law will take its course. If you want to survive, you will tell Detective Holloway every single detail about Julian Vance’s operation. You will tell them where the money went, who provided the false notarizations, and how your father planned to liquidate the estate."
"They'll kill me if I snitch!" he gasped.
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"The state will place you in protective custody if you cooperate," I answered. "That is your only way out. You will not have my money. You will not have this house. And you will never, ever set foot on Montgomery land again."
I hung up the plastic receiver, stood up, and walked toward the exit door without looking back. Behind me, through the thick glass, Tyler’s frantic screams rattled harmlessly against the steel walls.
