Chapter 4 - The Counter-Attack
By the fourth day after the assault, the swelling around my eye had subsided to a dull, mottled yellow, and I could move without feeling like my lungs were collapsing. My father’s dining room table, once covered in funeral casseroles, was now a tactical command center.
Mr. Finch sat opposite me, his reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose, looking through the financial records I had pulled from Damian’s public corporate filings. Thanks to my military intelligence background, I knew how to navigate public databases, cross-reference corporate registries, and track UCC filing liens.
"It’s worse than your father thought," I told Alistair, tapping a printed spreadsheet of Damian's primary corporate entity, Morse & Associates Realty. "Damian didn't just take out bad loans. He used his clients' earnest money deposits from three different residential developments to cover his margins on a failed luxury condo project downtown. That’s not just a bad business move. That’s misappropriation of escrow funds. It’s grand larceny."
Mr. Finch took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. "If the state licensing board or the attorney general gets wind of this, he won't just lose his business, Linda. He’ll be looking at twenty years in a state penitentiary."
"Which is exactly why he needed the two million dollars from Vanguard Logistics immediately," I said, leaning back carefully against my chair. "The closing date on the Vanguard option contract was supposed to be tomorrow. If Damian couldn't produce a clean quitclaim deed signed by me by five o'clock on Friday, the deal voids, the audit on his escrow accounts triggers automatically, and his entire house of cards collapses."
The doorbell rang, its sharp chime cutting through our conversation.
Mr. Finch immediately reached into his coat pocket, his hand tightening around a small canister of pepper spray he had taken to carrying since the attack. I stood up slowly, walking to the window beside the reinforced plywood front door.
A sleek silver luxury SUV was parked in the driveway. A young man in a sharp, tailored navy suit stood on the porch, holding a leather briefcase. He didn't look like an enforcer; he looked like a corporate lawyer.
I opened the door, staying behind the safety chain. "Can I help you?"
"Captain Morse?" the man asked politely, presenting a business card through the gap. "My name is Julian Vance. I am the senior legal counsel for Vanguard Logistics. I was informed by your brother's representation that you were... unavailable due to an accident, but I felt it necessary to deliver this notice in person."
I unlatched the chain and opened the door fully, my military posture commanding and rigid despite the bandages hidden beneath my shirt. "I am perfectly available, Mr. Vance. Come in."
The young lawyer stepped into the living room, his eyes lingering for a fraction of a second on the dark stain on the floorboards before he caught himself. He sat down at the dining table, acknowledging Mr. Finch with a professional nod.
"Captain Morse, to be entirely blunt, my corporation is caught in the middle of a very ugly family dynamic," Vance said, opening his briefcase and sliding a document toward me. "Damian Morse signed an intent-to-sell agreement with us six months ago, claiming he had full authority from Arthur Morse via a verbal power of attorney. We advanced him a non-refundable deposit of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to secure the option."
"Which he used to cover his real estate debts," I noted flatly.
"Presumably," Vance admitted, his face expressionless. "However, after seeing the news reports regarding your... altercation here four days ago, and after our compliance team verified the official probate filing made by Mr. Finch, we realize that Damian Morse had no legal authority to bind this property. He committed corporate fraud against Vanguard Logistics."
I looked at the document. It was a formal termination of the option contract, along with a demand for the immediate return of the two hundred and fifty thousand dollar deposit.
"If Damian can't pay you back that money by tomorrow," I said, looking up at Vance, "what happens?"
"We file a criminal complaint for grand fraud with the Franklin County Prosecutor's Office at nine o'clock on Monday morning," Vance said calmly. "We have no desire to be associated with an organization that assaults military veterans over estate disputes. We are pulling out of the Washington Avenue project entirely."
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I looked at Mr. Finch. A slow, cold realization washed over both of us. The trap had sprung. Damian wasn't just losing the house; his frantic attempt to steal it had accelerated his destruction. He was out of time, out of money, and out of options.
"Thank you, Mr. Vance," I said, standing up to show him out. "You’ve given me exactly what I need for my counter-offensive."
