Chapter 59 - Melissa's Last Bargain
Before the tactical squad could advance twenty yards, the sharp, hysterical shriek of tires skidding across sheer ice shattered the standoff.
A rusted, blue Hyundai Elantra—its front bumper held together with silver duct tape—crashed through the perimeter fence behind Caine’s Suburbans, spinning three hundred and sixty degrees on the snow-slicked road before slamming violently into the ditch bank.
The driver’s side door swung open, and Melissa tumbled out into the snow, screaming.
She had no winter coat, only a stained designer sweatshirt, running leggings torn at the knee, and high-heeled boots entirely useless in the three-foot drifts. Her mascara was smeared across her cheeks in black streaks, her hair wild with terror.
"Richard! Richard, don't shoot! Please!" she wailed, dragging herself through the snow toward Caine, holding up a cracked iPhone with trembling hands. "They froze the accounts! The bank said the signature was fraudulent! They’re looking for me! The police went to my apartment!"
Caine didn't even look down at her. He kept his eyes locked on the boxcar, his hand resting calmly on the butt of a sidearm holstered at his hip. "Get her out of the way," he muttered to the operative on his left.
The mercenary took two strides, grabbed Melissa roughly by the collar of her sweatshirt, and flung her backward into the snowbank like a sack of scrap iron.
"Richard, wait!" Melissa screamed, coughing as she inhaled snow, her face mottled with panic. "You promised! You said if I signed the renunciation deed against Jared, you’d transfer the three hundred thousand dollars! You said Jared wouldn't even know until the equipment was liquidated! I did everything you told me to do at Christmas! I broke the family down, just like you wanted!"
Jared’s hands tightened around the shotgun until the wood creaked. The pieces fell together with sickening clarity. Christmas Day. The humiliating spectacle with Noah and Ellie. The cat food on the table. The mocking laughter. It hadn’t just been Melissa’s standard, venomous narcissism—it had been deliberately orchestrated. Caine had been pulling her strings from the shadows, promising her a golden payout to force Jared into an emotional collapse, to get him to surrender or abandon the shop in disgust.
"You idiot," Caine said coldly, not sparing her a glance. "You were never getting three hundred thousand dollars. You aren't even Vance blood. Arthur adopted you when your mother married him in ninety-two. The Crown Charter specifically stipulates direct patrilineal lineage. You were an administrative lever to crack the door open, Melissa. And now the door is open."
Melissa froze on her hands and knees in the snow, staring up at Caine with horror. "Adopted? That’s... that’s a lie. Mom said—"
"Shut her up," Caine barked.
The operative raised the butt of his carbine, stepping toward Melissa.
*CRACK.*
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A twelve-gauge slug tore through the hood of Caine’s lead Suburban, blowing the alternator apart in an explosion of sparks and screaming belts.
"Back off her!" Jared’s roar echoed across the snowfield. "Step back, or the next one takes your knees off, Caine!"
