Chapter 5 - The Emergency Summit
By Wednesday afternoon, the shockwaves of the legal filing had thoroughly pulverized the Harrison family illusion of unbreakable solidarity.
According to an email forward we received from Mr. Vance’s office—cc’d from Margaret’s newly retained defense counsel—our family had attempted an emergency counter-strategy. They hadn't expected Andrew to actually follow through with court filings; they had assumed, as they always had, that Andrew would grumble, complain, and eventually fold like cheap lawn furniture to keep the peace.
Instead, they were staring down the barrel of a formal forensic audit that would compel bank records, credit card statements, and real estate deeds going back seven years.
At 4:00 PM, an unexpected text message arrived on Andrew’s secondary, unblocked business line. It wasn’t from Margaret, and it wasn’t from Britney.
It was from William.
Andrew. Can we talk? Just you and me. No lawyers. No shouting. Please.
I looked at the message over Andrew’s shoulder. William had always been the ghost at the feast—present, breathing, occasionally chuckling on cue, but fundamentally a non-entity who traded his spine for fifty years of quiet compliance under Margaret’s thumb.
“What do you think?” I asked softly.
Andrew stared at the screen for a long time, his thumb tapping rhythmically against the edge of his phone.
“He’s scared,” Andrew said quietly. “Not because he realizes what they did was wrong. He’s scared because Margaret’s little kingdom is actually collapsing, and for the first time in his life, he might have to face the consequences right alongside her.”
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“Do you want to meet him?”
Andrew nodded slowly. “Neutral ground. A coffee shop downtown. Let’s see what Dad has to say when Mom isn’t standing behind him writing his script.”
