"A rich man named David Sterling walked in here," I said, leaning forward, resting my tattooed hands flat on his desk. "He brought a guy who probably had gray hair and a beard. He handed you a fake ID. And because Sterling paid you a ridiculous amount of cash to look the other way, you stamped it without asking questions. But you still had to write it in the book to make it look legitimate, didn't you?"
Vance didn't answer. He was trembling now.
I reached across the desk and pulled the heavy leather ledger toward me. Vance made a weak, half-hearted attempt to grab it, but I simply flipped the thick cover open. I turned the pages, scanning the dates until I hit Tuesday, September 14th.
There it was. Five lines down.
Silas Vance. Surrender of Rights Affidavit.
Next to my name was a driver's license number. I pulled my actual wallet from my pocket, laid my real ID on the page, and looked at the numbers. They didn't match. Not even close. And the signature scrawled in the ledger was a hesitant, looping cursive—nothing like my sharp, blocky handwriting.
I pulled out my phone, opened the camera, and snapped three high-resolution photos of the open ledger page, making sure Vance’s face and my real ID were clearly visible in the frame.
Vance slumped in his chair, defeated. "He gave me two thousand dollars," the notary whispered miserably. "He said you were a violent addict. He said the kid was in danger, and he just needed the paperwork rushed to protect his family."
I pocketed my phone, securing the first piece of undeniable proof I had. David hadn't just made a mistake. He had orchestrated a felony to build a legal wall around that mansion, paying off corrupt clerks to ensure I could never legally check on Leo again.
"You're going to lose your commission for this, Arthur," I said, turning toward the door. "And if you call David Sterling to warn him I was here, I will make sure you lose your freedom, too."
I walked out into the blinding Nashville sun, the heat radiating off the parking lot. I had the evidence. I could prove the document was a fraud. But as I strapped my helmet on, the victory felt entirely hollow.
David was willing to risk prison to keep me away. Which meant whatever was happening behind the polished white columns of Wrenfield Lane was far worse than a forged signature. And silence was no longer an option.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
Which meant he was preparing to do something that required my signature. Something I would have fought to the death to stop.
I didn't ride back to my apartment. I didn't go to the police station. The police had already made their stance perfectly clear when they boxed me in at the curb and treated my very existence as a threat to the neighborhood. If I walked into a precinct with photos of a ledger on my phone, David’s lawyers would bury the claim in procedural delays for months. I didn't have months. By the time a judge ordered a subpoena for Arthur Vance’s book, Leo would be entirely out of my reach.
I needed the other end of the paper trail. I needed to know exactly where David had submitted that forged transfer of guardianship, and what he had attached it to.
I shifted gears, cutting through the heavy afternoon traffic, heading south toward Brentwood.
Dr. Elias Thorne’s pediatric clinic sat on the ground floor of a sleek, glass-fronted medical building surrounded by manicured oak trees. It was the kind of private, high-end practice where the waiting room felt like a luxury hotel lobby, smelling of lavender and expensive coffee instead of rubbing alcohol. I had chosen Dr. Thorne for Leo three years ago because he was the best asthma and respiratory specialist in the county. David had kept him, likely because the address looked good on paper.
I parked the bike near a pristine row of imported SUVs, ignoring the nervous glances from a woman loading a stroller into a Range Rover. I left my helmet on the handlebars and walked through the sliding glass doors.
The air conditioning hit me like a physical wall. The waiting room was mostly empty, just soft jazz playing over concealed speakers and the quiet tapping of keyboards behind the frosted glass partition.
I walked directly to the reception desk. The administrative assistant, a woman named Chloe who had worked there for five years, looked up. Her polite, practiced smile faltered the second she recognized me.
"Mr. Hayes," she said, her voice dropping a register, nervously glancing toward the closed door of the doctor’s inner office. "You... you shouldn't be here."
"I need to see Leo's file, Chloe," I said, keeping my voice low, perfectly level, and entirely calm. "And I need to know when his next appointment is."
She swallowed hard, her hand drifting toward the computer mouse. "I can't do that. You know I can't do that. Mr. Sterling submitted the new court documentation yesterday morning. You are no longer listed as a medical proxy or an authorized guardian. If I even open his chart for you, it’s a HIPAA violation."