Chapter 3 Three Laws

• SEVYN
• Twenty-four hours.
• He said that he only needed twenty-four hours.
• He promised me that he’d give the money back in twenty-four hours.
• Murphy’s Three Laws had kicked in and left me flat on my butt.
• Law number one: Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Check.
• Several things had gone wrong and the most damage that could be done was I could go to jail for hacking a banking system and illegally transferring half a billion dollars to someone else’s account.
• If the FBI didn’t come after us, the Mafia would. Though they’d have to split us in two, seeing as we owed two different gangs money. My father was in deeper debt and I was living on borrowed time.
• Any second my boss or the head of a cartel would come knocking on our door.
• That wasn’t the worst part. That alone was bad enough. So far, no one had noticed the money was missing. I had covered my tracks well, using a VPN and IP address that wouldn’t be traced back to me.
• The worst part was that the money, along with my profligate father-in-law, were both missing. Gone. Disappeared. Absconded.
• Leaving me and my father to deal with the consequences.
• Law number Two: Nothing is as easy as it looks. Check.
• It was easy enough to get into the system and move the money, carefully covering my tracks. The money was supposed to be transferred back in twenty-four hours. Easy, right? Wrong.
• Law Number Three: Everything takes longer than you think. Twenty-four hours he said. Twenty-four hours had turned into six days and thirteen hours.
• “I’m so sorry, poppet,” my father wept on his living room sofa. “I don’t know how to fix this. I shouldn’t have listened to Lincoln and his father. They were fooling me all along…and I didn’t realize. Now it’s too late…I should have run when I had the chance.”
• It hurt to see a grown man weep like a baby as his world fell apart around him. Dragging everything down with him. We were done for. Finished.
• “Gee,” I snorted and glanced around the cozy living room. “Thanks, Dad.”
• The four-bedroom luxury home in Long Island held a lot of memories. It was my childhood home and I imagined raising my kids here too. Unless a miracle happened, we’d have to sell this house and everything in it.
• What was even thinking agreeing to this madness?? How could I let them talk me into it?
• Oh, Lincoln was there the next day, giving me a thousand apologies and making more promises he couldn’t keep. He was keeping a low profile and offline for security reasons. In a way, I understood his reasoning; he didn’t want to be caught and punished for his father’s misdemeanors.
• “He’s in on it,” my father sniffled into his cotton handkerchief, staring at the hardwood floor like it held all the answers to his problems. “Be careful. Don’t be deceived. Your Lincoln is a schemer just like his father. They’ve been fleecing me for years and I was too blind to see it. I didn’t think my best friend would do such a thing to me.”
• Mr St. James and my father’s friendship started when they moved to Long Island a decade ago. Even our mothers were friends. Or at least they were.
• I didn’t want to believe it. I refused to believe, Lincoln St James, the man I loved and respected, ran away. The man who claimed to love me more than life itself. The man who wouldn’t harm a fly and reduced kittens from trees, would just up and leave me. He wouldn’t do that to me. Couldn’t just go and leave me to face the ramifications on my own, knowing full well it would cost me. He wouldn’t run when he understood fully the sacrifice I made for him and his family.
• Would he? Could he??
• Something was wrong. There had to be a reason for his prolonged silence.
• He was in trouble. An accident or network problems somewhere. He was kidnapped for his father’s debts and held against his will. Anything but not him running away. Surely he wouldn’t run?? Surely, he had disappeared as a safety precaution. He had to lay low. That’s what he’d said. They onto him and he had to go off the radar for a while. Just until the dust settled.
• “He didn’t run, father.” Even as I made excuses for the man I love, the words held no conviction. “He wouldn’t do that to us. He just needs to lay low until the smoke settles.”
• “If you say so, poppet” he muttered, leaning back in the wingbacked armchair and staring out the window. “My poor girl. So innocent…” he mumbled with a mixture of pity and tenderness.
• Lincoln’s phone was off and had to travel to Boston on business. I hadn’t heard from him for days, and the one time he called me had been from a burner phone. When I went to his apartment, last night, he wasn’t there and hadn’t been all week. His immediate family lived a block away from my parents and had disappeared too and was not reachable. His father was avoiding his debt collectors and hadn’t been to the office for months.
• And while some had the luxury of running, I wasn’t so lucky.
• Running was not an option for me. Where would I go? What would happen to my family? My parents and my young sister needed me. I was paying her college tuition and she was in her second year. I couldn’t let her down. Then there was my mother… Who would pay her hospital bills and take care of her? Already we owed the hospital close to twenty thousand dollars and counting.
• “I’m going to see, Mom,” I announced as I rose from the soft suede sofa. “Are you coming?”
• “Not today,” my father smiled sadly as I leaned down to kiss his forehead. “Give her my love.”