Chapter 3
The emergency room was quiet at this hour.
A nurse took one look at my father's arm and her professional mask slipped for a second.
"Who did this to you?" she asked softly.
"An accident," he mumbled, looking away.
I placed my hand on his shoulder. "It wasn't an accident. And you don't have to protect them anymore."
The doctor ordered X-rays and a full body scan.
While we waited, I sat beside him in the examination room, watching him shrink into the bed.
"Dad," I said gently. "I need you to tell me everything. When did this start?"
He was silent for a long time.
Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
It was a legal document.
A power of attorney.
Dated three months ago.
His signature was at the bottom.
But I knew my father's signature better than I knew my own.
This was a forgery.
"They said it was for my own good," he whispered. "That with my age and my blood pressure, I needed someone to handle things if something happened to me. Mark brought the papers over. Vanessa said she'd already talked to a lawyer friend. I... I just signed where they told me to."
My blood pressure spiked.
"Did you read it?"
He shook his head, shame washing over his face. "I trusted my own son."
That single sentence hung in the air between us, heavy and heartbreaking.
I unfolded the document and scanned it quickly.
It wasn't just a power of attorney for medical decisions.
It was a general power of attorney.
It gave Mark and Vanessa complete control over every aspect of my father's life.
His bank accounts.
His properties.
His business.
Everything.
And if they could get him declared mentally incompetent...
The document would become ironclad.
"They've been taking money," my father said, his voice breaking. "At first, it was small amounts. 'Just a loan,' Mark said. Then it got bigger. Last week, they tried to get me to sign over the cabin. When I refused... that's when Vanessa started talking about my memory. About how I was 'confused' all the time."
The X-ray technician knocked and entered.
After she left, I pulled out my phone and made a call.
"Sarah," I said when my partner answered. "I need a favor. Off the books for now, but I need you to run some financials on Mark Brooks and Vanessa Carter. Also, pull every property record, every bank account, every business filing connected to my father. And find out who their 'lawyer friend' is."
Sarah didn't ask questions. She never did.
"On it," she said. "You okay?"
"I will be," I told her. "I just found out my brother and his wife have been robbing our father blind and tried to have him committed tonight."
There was a long pause.
"Want me to bring the cavalry?"
"Not yet," I said. "But stay close."
I hung up and turned back to my father.
He was watching me, hope and fear warring in his eyes.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
I took his hand in mine.
"I'm going to burn their whole plan to the ground."
The doctor returned then with the results.
Three cracked ribs.
A fractured wrist.
Deep tissue bruising across his back and legs.
"She hit him while he was on the ground," the doctor said quietly. "Multiple times. With considerable force."
I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, the last of my hesitation was gone.
Mark and Vanessa had made this personal.
They had attacked my father.
May you like
They had tried to destroy him.
Now they were going to learn exactly what it meant to make an enemy of me.
