Chapter 114 - The Sister’s Broken Cage
At eight o'clock in the morning, my burner phone buzzed against the rusted tabletop.
The screen showed an unlisted number with a Rhode Island area code. Vance immediately plugged the phone into his tracing rig, nodding at me to put it on speaker.
I took a breath and swiped the green icon. "Hello?"
A ragged sob came through the speaker. *"Maya? Please... please don't hang up."*
It was Victoria. My older sister. The woman whose mouth had been pressed against my husband’s lips while my father blew out the candles in the adjacent room.
My knuckles turned white around the edges of the phone. "You have thirty seconds, Victoria. Give me one reason why I shouldn't throw this phone into the bay."
*"I'm locked in the carriage house at Newport,"* Victoria wept, her voice trembling with genuine, animal panic. *"Mother... Mother has men with guns outside my door. She took my passport. She took my phone—I found this old emergency handset in the floorboards. Maya, she's going to kill me."*
"Why would she kill her favorite tool?" I asked coldly, refusing to let her tears reach my heart. "You gave her everything she wanted. You seduced my husband and broke our family."
*"You don't understand!"* Victoria cried out, the sound muffled as if she were hiding under a bed. *"Arthur told me you were having an affair with your business partner! He told me you were trying to commit Mother to a psychiatric home to steal the inheritance! Mother corroborated everything he said! She told me... she told me if I didn't help her break you apart, you would leave us both penniless!"*
"You slept with my husband because you thought it was a rescue mission?" I laughed bitterly. "You're pathetic, Victoria."
*"I was a fool!"* she wailed. *"I know what I did was disgusting! But Mother never cared about either of us! When Arthur returned this morning without the signed trust release, Mother had him locked in the wine cellar. She told him he had until noon to sign the complete liquidation papers, and then... and then she told her head of security that neither Arthur nor I would be boarding the yacht to Bermuda."*
Liam and Vance exchanged sharp looks.
"She’s cleaning house," Vance whispered silently. "Tying off every loose end."
"Victoria," I said firmly into the microphone. "Listen to me very carefully. If you want to survive the next four hours, you do exactly what I tell you."
*"Anything, Maya! Please!"*
"The circuit breakers for the estate's perimeter cameras are in the sub-basement of the carriage house. Can you reach them without alerting the guards?"
May you like
*"Yes... yes, there's an old cellar door behind the garden trellis."*
"Cut the main feed at eleven-thirty sharp," I commanded. "And if you betray me again, Victoria, I won't need Mother to ruin you. I will let the federal prosecutors dismantle whatever is left of your life."
