Chapter 6 - The Bail Bond Ambush
When we stepped out of the Henderson facility into the blinding late-afternoon glare, a battered white Uber sedan was pulling up to the curb.
The doors flew open, and my father, Richard Montgomery, tumbled out onto the asphalt, followed by Evelyn. Both of them looked completely unhinged. Richard's designer polo shirt was wrinkled and stained with sweat, while Evelyn was clutching an alligator-skin handbag like a life raft, her hair wild and uncombed.
"Sloane!" Richard bellowed, his face turning an alarming shade of mottled crimson as he charged toward us. "You stop right there!"
Victoria immediately stepped in front of me, her hand slipping inside her blazer toward her phone to alert the armed private security detail we had waiting in our black Yukon Denali.
"Mr. Montgomery," Victoria said in an ice-cold voice. "Step back. You are within six feet of my client, and I will have the facility bailiffs detain you for harassment."
"Shut up, you bloodsucking leach!" Richard roared, pointing a trembling, age-spotted finger at Victoria before glaring at me. "Sloane, how dare you! How dare you come down here to gloat while your sister is being held without bail in an intake holding cell!"
"She isn't being held without bail, Father," I said, meeting his bloodshot eyes without blinking. "Her bail was set at one hundred and fifty thousand dollars forty minutes ago. The Clark County magistrate took a very dim view of her possessing stolen heirloom jewelry during an interstate pursuit."
"One hundred and fifty thousand dollars?!" Evelyn screamed, clutching her chest as if she were experiencing cardiac arrest on the sidewalk. "Where are we supposed to get that kind of cash on a Sunday afternoon?! You know our liquidity is tied up in the country club bond and Richard's consultancy investments!"
"I know," I said. "Because Richard’s consultancy hasn't made a profit since 2018, and I’ve been quietly paying the three-thousand-dollar monthly country club maintenance fees out of my discretionary account."
Richard flinched as if I had struck him with a riding crop. His aristocratic jaw worked silently for a moment before his arrogance reasserted itself.
"You owe this family, Sloane!" he snapped, his voice dropping into a harsh, threatening growl. "We raised you! We gave you the connections that allowed you to secure your first municipal architectural contracts! Without my name, you’d be drafting kitchen additions in the Valley! You are going to sign a personal guarantee for Hailey's bond right now, or so help me God, I will strip you of everything."
I looked at this man—the man whose approval I had spent my entire twenties chasing, the man who had dismissed my degree from Cornell as "cute" while throwing a lavish, fifty-thousand-dollar coming-out party for Hailey because she managed to graduate high school with a 2.4 GPA.
"You have no connections, Father," I said with devastating clarity. "The contracts Vanguard won were awarded because my structural models saved the city of Los Angeles fourteen million dollars in seismic retrofitting, while your friends were busy taking kickbacks on concrete supply lines. You haven't had real influence in this state for ten years."
"Sloane, please!" Evelyn suddenly dropped to her knees right there on the baking Nevada concrete, grabbing at the hem of my tailored trousers. "Please, darling! Hailey is delicate! She can't survive in a cage! She was throwing up blood this morning! Have mercy on your own flesh and blood!"
I stepped back, pulling my hem out of her grasp. The sight of my mother kneeling on the pavement didn't evoke pity; it evoked a profound, clean revulsion.
"Where was your mercy when Trevor texted me that picture at two in the morning?" I asked, looking down at her. "Where was your sense of family when Hailey laughed about leaving me alone in an empty house? You didn't care about my heart, Evelyn. You only cared that Hailey had successfully hooked herself to the machine that generates your lifestyle."
"She’s your sister!" Evelyn wept, her mascara running in black rivers down her wrinkled cheeks.
"She’s an adult criminal," I replied. "And if you want her out of that building, I suggest you go to the bail bondsman across the street. The one with the neon sign that says *Bad Boys Bail Bonds*. Because that is the only entity on this earth that is going to help you today."
"They want a house deed for collateral!" Richard yelled, his voice cracking with desperation. "They won't take promissory notes! They want our Westwood penthouse!"
A cold, razor-thin smile spread across my face.
"Then you’d better read your lease agreement, Father," I said smoothly. "Because that Westwood penthouse doesn't belong to you. It’s held in the portfolio of Montgomery Legacy Holdings LLC—a subsidiary that I purchased outright when your investment firm went belly-up in 2021. You don't own the walls, you don't own the deed, and you don't have the authority to pledge a single brick of it to a Nevada bondsman."
Richard froze. The color drained from his face so fast I thought he might faint on top of his wife.
"You... you bought the building?" he whispered.
"Three years ago," I said. "To keep you from being publicly foreclosed upon by the Bank of America. I never mentioned it because I didn't want to wound your fragile patriarchal pride. But since we’re laying all our cards on the table... you have thirty days to vacate the premises. My property manager will serve the formal notice of lease termination tomorrow morning."
"You're making us homeless?!" Evelyn shrieked, scrambling up from the ground, her hands clawing the air. "You're evicting your own parents for your sister’s mistakes?!"
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"No," I said, turning my back on them and walking toward the waiting Yukon. "I'm evicting two accomplices who cheered while my life was being dismantled. Enjoy the desert heat, Mother. I understand the motels near the train tracks have very reasonable weekly rates."
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