Chapter 5 - The Heir Apparent
The glare of four high-powered tactical searchlights instantly blinded us, turning the pitch-black workshop into an interrogation cell.
"Drop the gun, Mark," a calm, familiar voice echoed from the elevated catwalk above the boat slips.
I raised my arm to shield my eyes, keeping my body positioned directly in front of Lauren.
Standing on the wooden platform, dressed in an immaculate cashmere overcoat and leather gloves, was my brother Richard.
Beside him stood the driver of the armored truck, holding an assault rifle aimed directly at my chest.
"You always were too sentimental for your own good, little brother," Richard said, descending the wooden steps with slow, rhythmic arrogance.
"You should have stayed in Chicago. You should have eaten your steak and let the probate court do its work."
"You forged Father's will, Richard," I said, keeping my weapon lowered but firmly gripped in my right hand.
Richard stopped ten feet away, a thin, patronizing smirk curling his lips under the harsh white lights.
"I didn't forge anything, Mark," Richard replied smoothly, pulling off one leather glove. "I corrected his mistakes."
"Father was losing his mind in that hospice bed. He wanted to split the entire enterprise fifty-fifty between us."
"That enterprise was built on sixty years of our family's work," I said, my voice rising with fury. "It belonged to both of us!"
"You wanted to turn the waterfront into public parks and green logistics!" Richard scoffed, his eyes hardening into flint.
"You had no stomach for the debt leverage, the political payouts, the real mechanics of power in this state."
"So you stole it," Lauren shouted from behind me, stepping out from my shadow. "You stole everything he worked for!"
Richard’s gaze shifted to Lauren, his eyes narrowing with venomous contempt.
"And you, Lauren," Richard sneered, shaking his head. "My dear, dutiful sister-in-law. You were supposed to be our quiet little housewife."
"How did you turn an eighty-year-old lawyer against me?" Richard asked, taking a step closer.
"Grant Mercer knew what you did to your father's medication records, Richard," Lauren countered, her voice ringing clear off the wooden rafters.
The entire boathouse went dead silent.
Even the armed guard on the catwalk shifted his footing, his eyes flicking toward Richard for a fraction of a second.
"What medication records?" I whispered, a cold pit of dread opening in my chest.
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"Ask your brother why the toxicology screen was skipped at the funeral home," Lauren said, looking directly at Richard.
"Ask him why the private nurse was wired fifty thousand dollars the morning our father died."
