Chapter 7 - Ambush
Sarah instinctively backed away, clutching her phone behind her back. "Get out of my house, Arthur. You have no right to be here."
"Actually, my dear, I do," Arthur replied smoothly, pulling a court order from his leather briefcase. "Ethan signed full power of attorney to our firm this morning. I have a court mandate allowing the repossession of all shared digital assets, laptops, and mobile devices to preserve evidence for the child endangerment trial."
"You work for Evelyn," Sarah spat, her eyes darting toward the back kitchen door. "She sent you to destroy this phone, didn't she?"
Arthur’s polite veneer fractured for a split second, replaced by a cold, calculating glare. "Evelyn is protecting her family legacy from a sick woman. Gentlemen, take her phone. Be gentle, but thorough."
The two men stepped forward, their heavy boots thudding against the hardwood floor.
Sarah didn't hesitate. She grabbed a heavy ceramic vase from the hallway console table and hurled it directly at the nearest man's face. The porcelain shattered against his cheek with a sickening crunch, sending him stumbling back with a cry of pain.
"Get her!" Arthur shouted.
Sarah bolted down the hall toward the kitchen. She hit the deadbolt, threw open the back door, and sprinted into the freezing rain. Behind her, she heard the heavy crash of the back door being kicked wide open.
She didn't look back. She cleared the wooden fence into her neighbor’s yard, thorns tearing through her jeans and scraping her shins. She dashed down the narrow alleyway, slipping in the mud, her boots splashing through freezing puddles.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out while running under the shelter of an abandoned auto shop's corrugated metal roof. A text notification flashed on the screen:
*Cloud Sync Failed: Storage Full. Local video file will not back up until memory is cleared.*
The terror doubled in her throat. The damning video was trapped on this single device. If Arthur’s men caught her and destroyed the phone, the truth would die with it, and Lily would be left entirely at Evelyn’s mercy.
She needed an ally outside the Vance family’s deep pocketbook. She needed someone who despised Evelyn just as much as she did.
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Sarah pulled up her contacts, scrolling past the deleted family numbers until she found a contact she hadn't dialed in five years: Clara - Evelyn’s Ex-Daughter-in-law.
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