Chapter 5 - The Golden Son’s True Colors
At 3:00 PM, David was sitting in the cramped, air-conditioned lobby of the roadside motel, his head in his hands. Across the faux-leather coffee table, Gloria was pacing back and forth like a caged predator, waving an unlit cigarette.
"This is unconstitutional!" Gloria ranted, her voice bouncing off the cheap wallpaper. "I’m going to call the mayor! I’m going to call the news stations! 'Army Colonel Abuses Elderly In-Laws!' Let’s see how her fancy generals like that headline!"
"Mom, please, stop talking," David groaned, rubbing his throbbing temples. "She isn't an admin clerk. I told you, her title is Colonel. Do you have any idea what that means? She has lawyers, she has rank, she has connections! You pushed her way too far with that stupid spice rack and your big mouth on the phone!"
"Don't you dare raise your voice at me, David!" Gloria snapped, whirling around. "I raised you! Everything I did was for this family! You were supposed to handle her! You promised me six months ago that you’d have your name on that deed by Christmas! You’re thirty-two years old and you can’t even manage your own wife!"
"She isn't a wife you manage, Mom!" David yelled back. "You saw those deputies! They didn't even blink when you started crying!"
Just then, Thomas, who had been sitting quietly by the window, pointed outside. "David. A black sedan just pulled up."
The glass doors of the motel slid open, and a process server wearing a crisp dark suit walked straight toward their table. He glanced between David and Thomas before fixing his eyes on David.
"David Mitchell?" the man asked.
David stood up, blinking nervously. "Yeah? Who are you?"
"You've been served," the man said, dropping two heavy manila envelopes onto the table with a dull thud. "One for the dissolution of marriage, and one for emergency financial injunction."
David stared at the thick white legal envelopes as if they were unexploded ordnance. Gloria lunged forward and tore the first one open.
"Divorce?!" Gloria screeched, skimming the text. "She’s divorcing you?! And what is this... eighty-four thousand dollars?! She’s suing us for eighty-four thousand dollars?!"
David snatched the papers from his mother's hands, his face draining of whatever color remained. His eyes raced across the paragraphs: Unauthorized conversion... fraudulent transfer to Mitchell & Son LLC... immediate freeze of accounts ending in 4102 and 8891...
Frantic, David pulled out his phone and opened his mobile banking app. When he tried to log in, a stark red banner flashed across the screen: ACCESS RESTRICTED. CONTACT FINANCIAL INSTITUTION IMMEDIATELY.
He ran to the motel front desk, grabbed a water bottle from the cooler, and handed his debit card to the clerk. "Run this. Quick."
The clerk swiped the plastic card. The machine let out three harsh, angry beeps.
"Declined, sir," the clerk said flatly.
"Try it again! It’s a bank account with over twenty grand in it!" David pleaded, sweat beading across his forehead.
"Declined again, sir. Card is flagged as frozen."
Gloria walked over, trembling with genuine fear for the first time. "David... what do you mean, frozen? How are we going to pay for this room? How are we going to eat?"
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David turned to his mother, his eyes wild with terror. "We can't. She took it all back. She cut the power, Mom. She didn't just kick us out... she starved us out."
For the first time in his pampered life, David Mitchell realized that playing games with a seasoned military officer carried casualties he was entirely unprepared to survive.
