“Accept the twenty thousand dollars and leave the state.”

I sat down slowly in the wooden kitchen chair.

My father hadn’t just been an accountant.

He was the co-founder of the empire that Elias now ruled.

And Elias’s family had destroyed him to take it.

Suddenly, my phone on the table began to vibrate.

The screen lit up with a number I knew by heart.

It was Elias.

The phone kept vibrating.

It slid a fraction of an inch across the scarred yellow Formica of the kitchen table.

Elias’s name blinked in stark white letters against the black screen.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a dull, heavy thud.

I looked down at the yellowed documents scattered before me.

Arthur Vance.

My father’s real name, printed in crisp, typewriter ink next to the grand name of Marcus King.

The phone stopped ringing.

The kitchen fell dead silent, save for the low hum of the old refrigerator in the corner.

Then it started to vibrate again.

I reached out, my fingers cold and stiff, and swiped the screen to answer.

I pressed the phone to my ear.