Chapter 5 - The Final Accounting
The weeks that followed were a whirlwind of justice and reclamation.
Brennan Kincaid was arrested three days after the Sunday lunch,
charged with multiple counts of bank fraud and identity theft.
When the authorities raided his office,
they found not only the Blue Lantern records but also evidence of years of embezzlement from his own family’s employees.
He wouldn't be scrolling through his phone in prison;
he would be lucky if he got to see the sun for an hour a day.
Darlene Kincaid was forced to sell the mansion to pay back the creditors.
She moved into a small,
two-bedroom apartment in a part of town she had previously called "the slums."
No one at the country club took her calls anymore.
She was a pariah,
the mother of a common criminal,
left with nothing but the bitterness of her own failed arrogance.
Camille divorced Brennan with a speed that made the headlines buzz.
She didn't ask for a single cent of Kincaid money.
She didn't need it.
She stepped into her new role as the head of the Holloway Foundation,
using her father’s legacy to fund art programs for underprivileged children.
She was no longer the woman on her knees beside a marble coffee table.
She was a Holloway,
and she stood tall.
I returned to my "workshop" on a quiet Tuesday afternoon.
I sat at Franklin’s old desk and looked at a photo of him.
"We did it,
Frank,"
I whispered.
"We protected her."
Wesley Trent walked in,
holding a folder of new business.
"The Kincaid factories have been integrated into our main production line,
Daphne."
"The employees are getting a twenty percent raise,"
"and the morale has never been higher."
"Good,"
I said,
putting on my reading glasses—the ones I had returned to the Kincaid house for.
"Honesty is always more profitable in the long run,
Wesley."
Camille walked into the shop then,
carrying two coffees and wearing a smile that I hadn't seen in years.
"Ready for lunch,
Mom?"
she asked.
"Real lunch."
"Not a 'family matter' lunch."
I stood up,
feeling the weight of the years lift from my shoulders.
"I'm ready,
Camille."
As we walked out of the shop together,
I looked back at the Holloway logo on the wall.
It was a symbol of strength,
yes.
But it was also a symbol of a mother’s love.
The world might have thought I was just a woman with a small workshop,
but the world had learned a very expensive lesson.
Never underestimate the person who knows how the machines work.
Because they are the only ones who know how to shut them down.
We drove away in the old sedan,
not because we had to,
but because we liked the way the engine sounded.
May you like
It was the sound of a job well done.
The end.
