“Dad, you said nobody saw you,” Melanie muttered, her voice cracking.

“Shut up, Melanie!” my mother hissed, glaring at her younger daughter.

The silence in the room became heavy and suffocating.

Outside, the first drops of rain began to pelt against the windowpane.

My mother turned her gaze back to Harper, her eyes narrowing.

“A witness statement is just one person’s word against ours,” she said.

“We have the financial records. We have the digital evidence.”

“We have the resources to fight this in court for years.”

She glanced at the legal documents on the corner of the desk.

They bore the seal of the family trust—the massive, disputed fund my grandfather had left behind.

“You think your money can buy you out of this?” I asked, stepping closer to her.

“It has bought us everything we ever needed, Sadie,” my mother said, her voice low and venomous.

“And it will buy your silence, one way or another.”

“I don’t think so,” Harper said.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pair of steel handcuffs.

“Richard Davis, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder and felony assault.”