“Send me your location.”
I did.
His next words were colder than the storm.
“Listen carefully, Claire. Do not go back inside. Do not speak to him. Do not answer him if he calls. I am sending security and a doctor.”
I closed my eyes.
“Dad…”
“Yes?”
“Show no mercy.”
For the first time that night, he no longer sounded like my father.
He sounded like a judge delivering a sentence.
“Then mercy is over.”
Forty minutes later, two black SUVs pulled up beside me.
By sunrise, Grant Whitmore’s accounts had been frozen, his largest investor had withdrawn, his company board had called an emergency meeting, and every secret he had hidden beneath expensive suits was being dragged into the light.
PART 2
My father did not take me directly to his mansion.
He brought me to Baylor University Medical Center, where a trauma nurse documented the bruising on my cheek, neck, and upper arm.
A physician confirmed that I had a cracked rib, swelling around my left eye, and defensive injuries on my wrist.
I lay beneath the hospital lights, staring at the ceiling while my father stood near the window making calls in a low voice.
“No delay,” he said. “Serve him before noon.”
Then another call.
“Pull every contract connected to Whitmore Development.”
Then another.
“Find out who authorized the shell company payments.”
He never raised his voice.
