Chapter 6 - The Trap Springs Shut
James stood up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the wooden floorboards.
“Mommy?” Chloe whimpered, dropping her crayons and running to bury her face in Rebecca’s skirt. Clare began to cry softly, terrified by the sudden violence at the door.
“Stay here with the girls,” James ordered in a low, commanding voice. He didn't wait for Rebecca to reply; he strode briskly down the hallway toward the front entrance.
The hammering continued, accompanied by an enraged, slurred voice shouting curses through the wood.
“Open the door, you miserable old thief! I know you’re in there! You think you can steal my wife and hide her? I’ll burn this damn cabin to the ground!”
James reached the door and unlatched the deadbolt with a sharp click. He swung it wide open.
Standing on the porch wasn't just Richard this time. Flanking him were two burly men in heavy winter jackets—local thugs or private security guards Richard had clearly hired and paid off with cash to do his dirty work. Richard himself looked worse than he had the night before; his eyes were wild, his designer coat stained with mud, and a metal tire iron hung loose in his right hand.
“There he is!” Richard snarled, pointing the iron tool directly at James’s chest. “Get him! Drag him out of my way!”
The two thugs surged forward, stepping onto the porch with heavy boots, reaching out to grab James by the collar.
James didn’t flinch. He didn’t raise his fists. Instead, he simply stepped back into the doorway and raised his smartphone high in the air.
“Go ahead,” James said, his voice echoing cleanly across the snowy clearing. “Touch me. Assault a federal witness under active electronic surveillance, and let’s see how long your father’s lawyers keep you out of a federal penitentiary.”
The two thugs froze instantly, their hands hovering inches from James’s jacket. They exchanged uneasy glances. They were paid to intimidate runaways, not commit violent felonies on live-streamed corporate security lines.
“Don’t listen to him!” Richard screamed, his face purple with rage. “He’s bluffing! Break his arm!”
“Am I?” a cool, calm voice rang out from behind the SUV parked at the end of the driveway.
Everyone on the porch turned toward the sound.
Two sleek black state police cruisers had silently glided up the private mountain road, their tires crunching softly on the snow. The blue and red emergency lights flashed silently against the pine trees. Four armed state troopers stepped out of the vehicles, their hands resting calmly on their holstered sidearms.
Stepping out of the lead cruiser was a tall, sharp-featured woman in a tailored wool coat—Sarah Sterling, James’s chief general counsel and head of corporate security.
“Mr. Carter,” Sarah said crisply, walking up the driveway with a thick leather briefcase in her hand. “I trust we arrived in time?”
“Right on schedule, Sarah,” James replied calmly.
Richard’s face turned the color of ash. The tire iron slipped from his fingers, clattering loudly against the frozen wooden porch.
“What is this?” Richard stammered, looking frantically between the police officers and James. “You can’t do this! This is a private family matter!”
“It stopped being a family matter the moment you brought a weapon onto private property and threatened armed arson,” one of the state troopers barked, stepping forward and grabbing Richard by the arm, slamming steel handcuffs onto his wrists with a sharp click.
As the second thug was quickly pinned against the hood of the SUV and cuffed as well, Sarah walked up the porch steps, handing James a sealed manila folder.
“Emergency protective orders signed by the judge thirty minutes ago,” Sarah said efficiently. She glanced past James into the cabin, catching sight of Rebecca and the two wide-eyed little girls standing by the hallway.
Sarah offered Rebecca a warm, reassuring nod. Then she looked back at James. “And for the record, Mr. Carter, your board is currently panicking because you skipped yesterday’s merger meeting.”
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James looked down at the handcuffs dangling from Richard’s wrists as the hysterical man was dragged away toward the cruiser.
“Tell the board,” James said quietly, “that I’m finally working on something that actually matters.”
