Chapter 18 - The Dispatch from the Mountain
I turned my back on them and walked toward the front door, my hand resting on the brass knob.
"Marcus will have a truckload of firewood and a full propane tank delivered tomorrow morning," I said without looking back.
"The water service will be restored by noon."
"You won't freeze to death."
"That would be too clean of an exit."
"Instead, you will live out the rest of your days in this house, paying your lease to Apex, watching your golden child work sixty-hour shifts at a car rental counter in Dayton."
"You will watch your perfect family slowly crumble into the exact gray dust you left me in."
I pulled the door open, stepping back out into the sharp Ohio air as the bitter wind whipped across the porch.
Behind me, David let out a long, ragged sob that sounded like the final, splintering crack of a dying oak tree.
I climbed back into the Ford Explorer, slammed the door shut, and turned the ignition key.
The engine roared to life, its heater immediately blasting warm air across my face.
I shifted into reverse, backed down the cracked driveway, and headed toward the interstate without glancing in the rearview mirror.
My phone rang the moment I merged onto I-70 West.
It was Marcus Vance calling from the central operations hub in Bozeman.
"Boss," Marcus said, his voice crisp and professional against the background clatter of keyboards.
"We have an unexpected development regarding the secondary logistics contracts in the Pacific Northwest."
"Go ahead," I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the wet asphalt rushing beneath my headlights.
"A rival freight conglomerate out of Seattle—Vanguard Shipping—just made a hostile acquisition move against our Oregon timber routes."
"They're trying to undercut our shipping tariffs and muscle our independent drivers off the coast highways."
"Vanguard Shipping?" I repeated, narrowing my eyes as a familiar name flickered in the back of my memory.
"Who runs their regional acquisitions?"
"A man named Harrison Vance," Marcus replied, pausing for a fraction of a second.
"Wait... no relation?"
"No relation," I said, a cold, dangerous smile slowly spreading across my lips.
May you like
"Actually, let me check the corporate registry on my terminal."
"Give me thirty seconds."
