My sister moved into my parents’ house with her husband and two children, / Chapter 37 / 70

Chapter 37 - The Fall of Gregory Vance

"He sent fixers to High Street," I gasped, showing the screen to Dad as we piled into the back of Miller’s vehicle.

Dad’s face darkened, his jaw clenching so tight the veins bulged along his neck. "Martha is at the safehouse with the kids. But the house... everything we ever built is on that lot."

"They're trying to divide our forces," Agent Miller barked into his radio. "Dispatch units 4 and 7 to the High Street address! Code 3, armed suspects on site! Convoy Alpha, maintain course for Bolton Field! Sterling is the head of the snake. If we don't cut off the head, the body keeps striking!"

The sirens wailed as our four-vehicle motorcade tore through the wet morning streets, tires screaming across the asphalt as we flew west toward the regional airport.

Three miles out from the airfield perimeter, a silver Audi sedan shot out of a commercial industrial park on Frank Road, weaving erratically through the early morning commuter traffic.

"That's Greg's car!" Chloe screamed from the trailing transport vehicle over the tactical radio. "That's Greg's Audi! He has the backup drive in the trunk!"

"Box him in!" Miller commanded over the tactical channel.

Two marked state patrol cruisers accelerated, their heavy push-bars gleaming in the gray daylight. They surged ahead, flanking the silver Audi on both sides. Greg realized he was trapped. In a frantic, cowardly move, he swerved hard toward the shoulder, attempting to cut across the grassy ditch to reach the airport access road.

The Audi’s front tires hit the deep, waterlogged mud of the ditch. With a violent spray of wet sod, the vehicle spun one hundred and eighty degrees, the rear bumper slamming violently into a concrete drainage culvert with an explosive crunch of shattered fiberglass.

The engine died with a hiss of steam.

Within seconds, six armed federal agents surrounded the wrecked sedan, their service weapons drawn and trained on the driver's side window.

"Gregory Vance! Step out of the vehicle with your hands on your head! DO IT NOW!"

The driver’s door creaked open. Greg tumbled out onto his knees in the mud, crying like a terrified child. His expensive tailored suit was ruined, his nose bleeding from the deployed airbag, his hands raised in pathetic surrender.

"Don't shoot! Please don't shoot! I didn't do anything!" Greg shrieked, his voice cracking. "Victor made me do it! He had recordings of me! He threatened to bankrupt my firm!"

Dad stepped out of the Suburban, walking slowly through the rain until he stood three feet in front of his son-in-law.

Greg looked up through swollen eyes, catching sight of the man whose life and dignity he had tried to destroy.

"Arthur... Arthur, please, listen to me," Greg stammered, crawling forward on his hands and knees. "I did it for Chloe! I did it for your grandsons! Victor was going to pay off your mortgage! I was trying to protect the family!"

Dad looked down at Greg with cold, unvarnished disgust. He didn't raise a hand. He didn't curse.

"You took my daughter," Dad said, his voice quiet, vibrating with absolute disdain. "You turned her against her own blood. You stole my wife’s peace of mind, and you put my grandsons in the path of federal prison."

Dad reached down, grabbed the leather strap of the heavy black briefcase lying in the mud beside the open car door, and yanked it out of Greg’s reach.

"You're not family, Vance," Dad said coldly. "You're just a parasite that finally ran out of hosts."