“Then I am going to call him right now and ask him exactly what is going on.”
The moment my thumb hovered over the screen to unlock it, my father seized my wrist with a desperate strength that shocked me.
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“No, sweetheart. Please, do not call him yet.”
I stared down at him, completely confused by the pure panic written across his face.
“Dad, what is the matter with you? Why are you acting like this?”
“Come with me,” he whispered, his eyes flicking toward the others. “Please, we need to be alone.”
He led me toward the guest bedroom and pulled me inside, locking the door securely behind us before sinking onto the edge of the bed as though every bit of strength had drained out of him. I stayed standing in the middle of the room, my heart beating so hard that I could hear it in my ears.
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“Dad, you need to tell me the absolute truth right now. Why are you here, and what exactly did Kyle tell you?”
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My father looked up at me with eyes full of confusion and heartbreaking sorrow.
“My dear, tell me the truth… are you really not in trouble with the law?”
The entire world seemed to tilt sideways, and dizziness rushed through me.
“In trouble? What in the world are you talking about, Dad?”
He swallowed with visible effort and pulled a crumpled, sweat-marked piece of paper from his pocket.
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“Kyle called me about a week ago. He told me that you had made a terrible mistake with company finances back in Salt Lake City. He said they were holding you in a secure facility while they conducted an internal investigation. He claimed they needed three million dollars in cash to fix everything before they pressed charges and sent you to prison.”
I felt every drop of blood leave my face.
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“He told you that?”
“He swore to me that I could not call you, because he said that if I reached out to you or anyone else, it would only make your situation significantly worse. He convinced me that all of your personal and business accounts were frozen and that he was the only person in the world who could save you.”
I lowered myself onto the floor, the room spinning around me.
“Dad, I went there to close a major contract. Nobody stopped me, nobody investigated me, and I came back early because I finished the job ahead of schedule.”
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My father shut his eyes, his whole body seeming to collapse beneath the weight of what he had just realized.
“Then he lied to me. He used my love for you to steal from me.”
I reached out and carefully took the paper from his trembling hand, reading the words printed across it. It was a notarized power of attorney, granting Kyle complete legal authority to mortgage my father’s house and the farmland surrounding it in rural Nebraska. The same house where I had grown up, where photographs of my late mother were kept, and where my father planned to live out the final years of his life.
“Did you actually sign this, Dad?”
“Yes, my dear. Kyle took me to a notary office and told me it was the only way to get a quick emergency loan to pay your legal fees. They were supposed to release the money to him at the bank today. Three million dollars.”
A rage moved through me so cold and sharp that it no longer felt like ordinary anger. It felt like pure, icy clarity. Kyle had not merely allowed his family to degrade my father and treat him like dirt; he had also created a cruel, calculated lie to steal the only inheritance my father had left.
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