Chapter 11 - The Counter-Battery Fire
When I walked back through our front door, Ethan was still standing by the kitchen island, staring at a printout of the Crestline Capital amortization schedule as if trying to memorize enemy troop movements.
He looked up, noticing the grim, hardened set of my jaw.
"Nat? Where did you go? You said forty minutes—you’ve been gone for over an hour."
"Get your coat, Ethan," I said, walking straight to the front hallway closet and pulling my tactical field bag off the shelf.
Ethan blinked, confused. "What? Why? Where are we going?"
"We are going to visit your mother," I said, my voice leaving zero room for argument.
"Nat, no, wait—you know what happens when we go over there without an invitation," Ethan protested, holding up his hands. "She’ll lock the doors, call the police, or start screaming about how we're harassing a senior citizen. David Vance told us not to engage her directly—"
"David Vance doesn't know what I just found out," I interrupted, walking over and placing my hands flat on the kitchen island, staring straight into his eyes. "Ethan. Listen to me very carefully. Your mother isn't just broke. She isn't just struggling with property taxes."
Ethan’s brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"Six hundred thousand dollars," I said clearly.
Ethan let out a short, disbelieving laugh. "What? Six hundred thousand dollars from where? Who has six hundred thousand dollars?"
"Your father did," I said. "Three months before he died, he liquidated his entire estate, set up a private family trust, and made you the sole beneficiary. Six hundred thousand dollars, Ethan. Sitting in a secure account right now in downtown Raleigh."
Ethan stared at me as if I had just spoken in ancient Greek. "That... that's impossible. If my dad had six hundred thousand dollars, why were we living paycheck to paycheck when we bought our first car? Why did I have to take out student loans?"
"Because your mother has control of the trust," I said, my voice dropping like artillery rounds. "She has been sitting on your inheritance for three years, using it as a leash to keep you crawling back to her for scraps. And while she’s been making you pay her bills, while she’s been forcing you to co-sign predatory forty-two-thousand-dollar loans behind my back, she has been planning to disinherit you entirely."
Ethan’s face went through three distinct shades of gray. He grabbed the edge of the granite counter, his knuckles turning white, his breathing turning shallow and ragged.
"No," he whispered, shaking his head in denial. "No, Mom wouldn't... Mom loved Dad. She wouldn't steal my inheritance."
"She’s filing the disinheritance papers this afternoon, Ethan," I said, my voice mercilessly clear. "Melissa told me. Her estate attorney’s office is downtown on Fayetteville Street. If we don't get down there in the next forty-five minutes with a court-ordered injunction and a forensic subpoena, that money is going to a historical society, and your mother’s financial shell game will be permanently locked behind probate court doors."
Ethan stared at me, the final illusion of his mother’s nobility shattering into dust right before his eyes. The boyish charm, the desperate desire to keep the peace, the pathetic hope that someday, somehow, Virginia would look at him with pride—all of it vanished, replaced by the cold, burning fury of a betrayed son.
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He turned around, walked to the hall closet, grabbed his heavy wool coat, and slid his arms into the sleeves with the sharp, mechanical precision of a soldier deploying to the front line.
"Let’s go," Ethan said, his voice hard as iron.
