Chapter 2 - The Honda Refuge
The interior of the Honda smelled of damp wool, old receipts, and the faint, fading scent of Mark’s spearmint gum.
I turned the key, and the engine rattled to life, heater wheezing a lukewarm breath against the fogged-up windshield. I wiped the glass with the palm of my hand, looking back toward the porch. Richard and Evelyn had already stepped back inside, locking the heavy mahogany door behind them as if we had never existed.
“Where are we going, Mom?” Sophie asked, her voice small and trembling in the back seat. She had her knees pulled up to her chest, wrapped in a blanket I kept in the trunk.
“We’re going to stay at Aunt Clara’s for a couple of days, sweetie,” I said, forcing a calm tone that felt entirely foreign to my throat. “Just until we figure things out.”
“They took Dad’s house,” Noah said, staring straight ahead through the windshield, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles were white. “They took his house, and they locked us out. Dad built that company. He worked sixty-hour weeks while his dad sat in the penthouse.”
“I know, Noah,” I whispered, putting the car in drive.
“We can’t just let them do this. Dad wouldn't have—”
“Your father is gone,” I said, and the harshness of the words made my own voice break. I didn't mean to snap, but the pressure in my chest was threatening to tear me apart. I pulled my hands from the steering wheel and pressed them against my face. “Just... give me a minute, Noah. Please.”
In the rearview mirror, I saw Noah’s expression soften. He reached back and pulled the blanket tighter around his little sister. The silence in the car became heavy, broken only by the rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers cutting through the freezing downpour.
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Mark had trusted his family. That was his fatal flaw. When he started Bennett Logistics with his father twelve years ago, he signed away majority voting shares thinking family honor meant something. When he got sick, Richard promised him, hand on heart, that no matter what happened, Laura and the children would be taken care of for life.
Lies. All of it. The moment Mark stopped breathing, the Bennett family corporation erased us from the ledger.
