Chapter 4 - The Ledger of Greed
Lauren’s eyes darted frantically toward the glass desk, where a green progress bar on the center screen was slowly filling up—68% Transfer Complete.
“Stay back!” Lauren yelled, reaching into her open purse sitting on the desk and pulling out a small, sleek stun gun. The electric prongs crackled with a terrifying, blue light in the dim room. “Don't come any closer, Natalie! I swear to God I will drop you right here!”
I didn't move. I didn't flinch. I just stood there, looking at the blue sparks jumping between the metal prongs.
“You look ridiculous in those scrubs, Lauren,” I said, my voice completely devoid of emotion. “Did you really think you could just put on a uniform, walk into a maternity ward, and carry a four-day-old child out to your car like a piece of stolen luggage?”
“It was Eric’s idea!” Lauren screamed, her hands shaking so badly the stun gun rattled against her fingers. “He said you were weak! He said your mother’s family was going to cut him out of the trust assets as soon as the baby was born! He told me we were just taking what was legally his!”
“My grandfather’s trust was created thirty years before I even met Eric,” I said, taking a shallow breath as a pulse of pain shot through my stomach. “It was never his. And it sure as hell was never yours.”
“It’s sixty million dollars, Natalie!” Lauren cried out, her face twisted with a mixture of rage and pathetic desperation. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to work for rich snobs like your mother for ten years?! Sitting in those corporate boardrooms, watching you people spend more on a single nursery decoration than I make in three years?!”
“So you decided to steal my child?” I stepped closer, ignoring the crackling blue spark in her hand. “You decided that a newborn baby was just a bargaining chip in your asset transfer scheme?”
“She wasn't going to be hurt!” Lauren spat, her eyes flashing wildly. “We were going to raise her in Switzerland! We had the adoption papers pre-filed through a private agency in Zurich! She would have had everything!”
“She has a mother,” I said, my voice dropping into a deadly, quiet register. “And her mother is standing right here.”
Behind me, the front door of the lake house slammed open with a heavy, booming crash.
Heavy footsteps thundered down the hallway, and four state troopers armed with tactical weapons burst into the office, their flashlights casting bright, blinding beams across the glass desk.
“State Police! Drop the weapon! Hands in the air! Hands in the air now!”
Lauren gasped, dropping the crackling stun gun onto the carpet as if it had turned into a burning coal. She threw her hands into the air, weeping hysterically as two troopers forced her to her knees and pulled her arms behind her back, snapping heavy steel handcuffs around her wrists.
David Ross stepped into the doorway behind the officers, holding his phone to his ear. He looked at the glowing laptop screen.
The progress bar read: 71% Transfer Complete.
David walked past the struggling Lauren, picked up the silver hub connecting the black hard drives, and pulled the main cable free from the laptop.
The screen flashed red—Transfer Interrupted. Connection Terminated.
David looked down at Lauren, who was sobbing uncontrollably into the carpet as the troopers pulled her to her feet.
“It’s over, Miss Hayes,” David said smoothly, sliding the hard drives into his coat pocket. “The federal prosecutor has already issued a freeze on every account registered to your brother’s software firm. You’re going away for a very long time.”
I turned around slowly, leaning heavily against David’s arm as we walked out of the house into the cool, rain-washed air.
As the troopers led Lauren toward the back of a black-and-white police cruiser, she looked at me through the rain, her makeup running down her face in dark streaks.
“Natalie!” she yelled, her voice cracking over the sound of the wind. “Please! Tell them it was Eric! He forced me! He threatened me!”
I stopped near the passenger side of David’s car, resting my hand against the cold metal door.
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I didn't say a word. I just looked at her—this woman who had tried to steal my daughter, my name, and my life—and pulled the black wool coat tighter around my chest.
I climbed into the car, closed the door, and looked straight ahead as David turned the engine on and drove us away from the lake.
