"Are you out of your mind?" David yelled, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. He pointed a shaking finger at the front door. "Get out of my house, Hayes. Right now. Or I swear to God I will have you arrested for breaking and entering."
I didn't look at him. I kept my eyes on the man in the scrubs. "You the transport intake?"
The man blinked, clutching his tablet defensively. He looked from me to David, clearly unnerved by the sudden intrusion of a dusty, heavily tattooed biker into a billionaire's living room. "I'm... I'm the clinical coordinator for Silver Pines, yes. Sir, you can't be in here during a patient consultation."
"There is no consultation," David snapped, pulling a sleek smartphone from his pocket. "This man is a violent trespasser. I’m calling the police."
"Call them," I said, my voice dropping to a low, flat rasp. I walked slowly toward the glass coffee table, my boots heavy on the Persian rug. "Call them right now, David. Tell them to send the same two cruisers from this morning. But before you dial, you might want to look at what I brought you."
I reached into my vest, pulled out the folded paper Chloe had printed, and tossed it onto the glass table. It slid to a stop directly beside the silver lockbox.
David’s eyes darted to the paper. He saw the letterhead from Dr. Thorne’s clinic. He saw the black laser-printed text of the heavy Lorazepam dosage and the Silver Pines transfer authorization. His thumb stopped hovering over his phone screen.
"I don't know how you got that," David said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet register. "But it doesn't matter. It’s a sealed medical order. You have no legal rights to Leo anymore. You signed them away yesterday."
"Did I?" I asked.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, opened the screen, and tapped on the high-resolution photograph of the notary ledger. I set the phone down on the glass, right next to the medical order, facing the transport coordinator.
"Take a good look at that screen," I told the man in scrubs.
The coordinator leaned forward hesitantly, his eyes scanning the glowing photograph.
"That is the official ledger of a notary named Arthur Vance, taken two hours ago," I said, keeping my voice perfectly steady. "Look at the signature. Then look at my hands. I’ve spent thirty years working in machine shops and riding heavy twins. I write in block letters. That looping, hesitant cursive is a forgery. David paid Arthur Vance two thousand dollars in cash to stamp a fraudulent transfer of guardianship because he knew I would never agree to let him lock my son in a behavioral cage."
The transport coordinator paled. He looked up at David, his professional demeanor fracturing. "Mr. Sterling... is this true?"
"It’s a lie!" David barked, stepping forward, his composure finally cracking. "He’s a degenerate! He’s unstable! That’s why we’re moving the boy, to protect him from this exact kind of erratic behavior!"
"If it’s a lie," I said, stepping directly into David’s personal space, forcing him to look up into my eyes, "then let the police sort it out. Let them subpoena Arthur Vance. Let them pull the security footage from the strip mall where Vance works. Let them audit his bank deposits from yesterday morning. When they do, David, they aren't going to arrest me for trespassing. They are going to indict you for felony forgery, medical fraud, and the attempted kidnapping of a minor across state lines."
The silence in the room was absolute.
David’s jaw tightened so hard I thought his teeth might crack. He looked at the printed medical order, then at my phone, and finally at the clinical coordinator, who was already standing up and backing away from the table.
"I can't be a part of this," the coordinator said, his voice shaking. He grabbed his tablet and the silver lockbox off the table. "Mr. Sterling, if there is a dispute regarding legal guardianship, Silver Pines cannot and will not execute a residential transfer. Our contract is voided. Effective immediately."
"Sit down!" David roared, his panic finally bleeding through the anger. "I paid your institute a fifty-thousand-dollar retainer!"
"We will refund it," the man said, practically sprinting toward the foyer. "Do not contact our offices again."
The heavy front door clicked shut, leaving just the two of us standing in the center of the massive, silent room.