My Son and His Wife Took Their Son on a $20K Cruise, Leaving Their Daughter Home — By Noon, I Was Standing at Their Table

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Chapter 41

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He made it when he locked the fridge. He made it when he chose greed over family. Now I had to make mine. I thought about the yellow note on the lobster. Be good. Austin had never been good. He had been spoiled. He had been protected. And that protection had rotted him from the inside out.

Saving him now wouldn’t help him. It would just enable him to destroy whatever was left. Rachel, I said, I am here, Bill. File the charges. There was a pause on the other end, a moment of respect. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘Once I send this packet to the FBI, I there is no taking it back.

The federal prosecutor will pick it up immediately. I am sure,’ I said, my voice steady. ‘He stole my house. He stole my grandchildren’s future. He is not my son anymore, Rachel. He is a liability. Cut him loose. Understood, Rachel said. I will have the papers ready for you to sign when you dock in Miami.

I will meet you at the pier with the agents. One more thing, I said. Yes, the lone sharks, the ones in Halia. I will handle them, Rachel said, and I could practically hear her smiling. I will send a cease and desist letter attached to the federal fraud filing. Once they know the FBI is involved and that the debt is tied to a criminal investigation, they will scatter like cockroaches.

They do not want federal heat. They will write off the debt and disappear. Thank you, Rachel. Get some sleep, Bill. You have a war to fight tomorrow. I hung up the phone. I sat there for another minute just breathing. I felt lighter. The decision was terrible, but it was right. It was the surgical removal of a tumor.

I washed my face with cold water. I dried my hands. I unlocked the bathroom door and stepped back into the cabin. The room was dark and quiet. I walked over to the pillow fort. Mia was sleeping with her thumb near her mouth, holding on to Leo’s sleeve. Leo was snoring softly, his face relaxed and young again, free from the stress of his mother’s expectations.

I lay down on the floor next to them. I didn’t have a pillow, but I didn’t care. I put my arm over them, creating a physical shield. Austin was going to lose everything. He was going to lose his freedom, his reputation, and his family. He would spend the next 10 years in a concrete box wondering where it all went wrong.

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