Chapter 4 - THE POWER GOES OUTAbove us, the festive music screeched to a halt.
"What the hell?" a man’s voice yelled upstairs—recognizable as Marcus, Sabrina’s smarmy corporate lawyer who had been helping draft the fraudulent power-of-attorney documents.
"Fuse must have blown!" Irving’s voice boomed over the sudden murmurs of fifteen panicked guests. "Sabrina, check the breaker panel in the kitchen!"
I watched the basement ceiling through the floor grates. Flashlights began to flicker across the ceiling boards as guests panicked in the dark.
"Dad! The power's out!" Sabrina’s voice echoed down the stairwell, sharp with sudden anxiety. "And my phone has no service! What's going on?!"
"Check the basement panel!" Irving shouted back.
I motioned to Wyatt to stay quiet, slipped a pair of heavy leather work gloves onto my hands, and stepped directly into the pool of light at the base of the stairs.
A moment later, the basement door swung open.
Sabrina stood at the top of the steps, holding a flickering smartphone flashlight in one hand and a heavy iron fireplace poker in the other. Her black evening dress caught the dim beam, her face twisted in an ugly mixture of irritation and sudden, creeping dread.
"Wyatt? Are you still breathing down there, you worthless—"
She stopped dead in her tracks as the beam of her flashlight swept down the stairs and landed not on a cowering, half-dead man in the corner, but on an older man standing tall in the center of the room.
Me.
"Abraham?" Sabrina blinked, lowering the poker slightly, her brain struggling to compute why the ragged old truck driver was standing in her husband’s blood-stained basement. "What... what are you doing here? How did you get in?"
"You left the back door unlocked, Sabrina," I said, my voice echoing coldly off the concrete walls. "Just like you left your conscience at the altar."
Sabrina’s eyes narrowed. For a second, a flicker of panic crossed her features, but she quickly recovered, sneering as she took a step down the stairs.
"You old fool," she hissed, pointing the poker at my chest. "You think you can just wander in here? You're a nobody. A broke truck driver living on government checks. You think your son is rich? We own him now. And if you know what's good for your miserable old bones, you'll turn around and walk right back out that door before my father feeds you to the dogs."
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I didn't flinch. I didn't raise my voice. I simply reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out a thick manila folder, and dropped it onto the bottom step with a heavy thud.
"You might want to read that before you talk about who owns who," I said quietly.
