Chapter 5 - THE EXTORTIONIST
Harrison Thorne’s words hung in the quiet, wood-paneled office like poison in the air.
Extortionists.
I stared at him, the billionaire CEO standing tall and furious, his custom suit perfectly tailored, his jaw clenched in absolute rage. He wasn’t just angry; he looked at me with a deep, personal revulsion, as if I were a disease that had infected his building.
“Harrison, stop,” Elias said, his voice frail but commanding. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about!” Harrison fired back, stepping further into the room. He pointed a long, manicured finger at me. “I know her father bled you dry for two decades. And now that he’s dead, the daughter has shown up to collect the family inheritance. It’s sickening.”
“Don’t you talk about my father,” I snapped, my voice shaking with a rage I didn’t know I had.
Harrison turned his cold gaze on me. “Oh, I’ll talk about him. Arthur Harper. The noble bus driver who played the hero and then spent the next twenty years holding a knife to my family’s throat.”
He walked over to his father’s desk and picked up the faded canvas coat I had dropped there. He felt the heavy weight of the pocket, the thick bundle of cash hidden inside. A bitter laugh escaped his lips.
“Twenty thousand dollars?” Harrison asked, dropping the coat back on the desk like it burned him. “Is that her monthly retainer now, Dad? Or is this a bonus because she put on such a pathetic show at the restaurant last night?”
“That money was owed to Arthur!” Elias shouted, slamming his hand against the mahogany desk. The sudden burst of energy seemed to drain the old man. He swayed slightly, gripping the edge of the wood to steady himself.
Harrison immediately softened, his anger replaced by genuine panic. He rushed forward, gripping his father’s shoulders. “Dad, sit down. Please. You’re pushing yourself too hard.”
He guided Elias back into the leather chair, treating him like fragile glass. Then Harrison stood up and faced me, his expression hardening again into stone.
“My father’s mind is slipping,” Harrison said to me, his voice a low, dangerous whisper. “He forgets things. He gets confused. And parasites like your father took advantage of his guilt for years. But I am not my father.”
He reached inside his jacket, pulled out a sleek leather checkbook, and clicked a heavy gold pen.
“How much do you want?” Harrison asked, not looking at me as he started writing. “To take your coat, walk out of this building, and never speak to my father again. Fifty thousand? A hundred?”
I felt a hot, humiliating tear slide down my cheek. I had spent my entire life watching people with money treat my family like dirt. I watched my dad swallow his pride every single day so we could eat.
“Keep your money,” I choked out.
I grabbed my dad’s canvas coat off the desk, pulling it tight against my chest. The heavy bundle of cash banged against my ribs.
“Emily, please wait,” Elias called out weakly from the chair, reaching a trembling hand toward me.
“Don’t contact me again,” I said to the old man.
I didn’t wait for the elevator. I found the emergency stairwell and walked down forty flights of stairs, crying silently the entire way down.
When I finally got back to my apartment, the sky had turned a bruising purple.
I unlocked the front door and walked into a nightmare.
Sarah was sitting on the floor of our tiny living room, her face buried in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably. Little Leo was sitting beside her, looking terrified, patting her back with his small hand.
“Sarah? What’s wrong?” I dropped the coat and rushed over, dropping to my knees.
Sarah looked up, her face red and swollen. She pointed a trembling finger at the kitchen counter.
Lying next to the cheap coffee maker was a neon pink piece of paper. An eviction notice.
“They gave us three days,” Sarah sobbed, pulling Leo into her lap. “The landlord said they sold the building. The new owners want everyone out. Emily, we have nowhere to go. I have twenty dollars in my checking account. My ex-husband’s lawyer called this morning—if we’re homeless, they’re taking Leo on Monday.”
The room spun. Three days.
My eyes darted to the canvas coat lying on the floor. Twenty thousand dollars was sitting in the pocket. It was enough to rent a new place, pay for a lawyer, buy Leo ten pairs of winter boots, and fix my car.
It was right there.
But Harrison’s words echoed in my head. Extortionist. Blood money.
If my dad had ruined someone’s life to get that money, it would poison us. I couldn’t build a safe home for Leo on a foundation of blackmail. I had to know the truth.
“Sarah, listen to me,” I said, grabbing her face gently. “We are not going to be homeless. I promise you. Just give me an hour.”
I stood up, walked past the kitchen, and went straight to the hall closet. I pushed past our winter coats and the vacuum cleaner, reaching the heavy plastic bins in the back.
When my dad died, he left almost nothing. Just his clothes, some old tools, and a heavy metal toolbox we had never been able to open because the rusted padlock was jammed.
I dragged the metal box out into the hallway. I went to the kitchen drawer, grabbed a heavy hammer, and walked back.
I brought the hammer down on the rusted padlock. Once. Twice. On the third strike, the metal shattered.
I threw the lock aside and opened the lid.
The box smelled of grease and old memories. Inside were wrenches, screwdrivers, and a few spark plugs.
But buried underneath the tools, wrapped in a plastic grocery bag, was a small, worn leather journal.
I pulled it out with shaking hands. The leather was soft and cracking. I opened the first page. It was my dad’s handwriting—cramped, messy, all capital letters.
Most of the pages were boring. Mileage logs. Grocery lists. Reminders to fix the kitchen sink.
But then I reached the middle of the book.
A page dated November 2nd, 1999.
The handwriting was different here. Shaky. Frantic. Stained with what looked like dried coffee—or dried blood.
He was just a kid. Drunk and terrified. He hit the girl and tried to run. I blocked him with the bus. Crushed my leg. The old man came crying to me at the hospital. Begged me to say I was the one who swerved. If the boy goes to prison, the family is destroyed. He offered to pay for Sarah’s treatments. God forgive me. I took the deal.
The breath left my lungs.
Sarah’s childhood leukemia. When we were kids, Sarah had been incredibly sick. My parents had mysteriously found the money for an experimental treatment in Boston. They always claimed it was an anonymous charity.
It wasn’t a charity. It was Elias Thorne paying my dad to take the fall for a crime.
My dad wasn’t an extortionist. He was a man who sold his own good name to save his daughter’s life.
“Aunt Em?”
I looked up, tears blurring my vision.
Leo was standing in the hallway, holding the canvas coat I had dropped on the floor. He had both hands buried deep in the pockets.
“I found something shiny,” Leo said softly, pulling his small hand out.
I froze.
Resting in my five-year-old nephew’s palm was a heavy, solid gold money clip.
It was engraved with two letters: H.T.
Harrison Thorne.
But it wasn’t the gold that made my stomach turn violently. It was the dark, reddish-brown stains crusted in the grooves of the engraving.
May you like
Dried blood.
The blood from the girl Harrison Thorne had killed twenty years ago.
