My Billionaire Dad Got Arrested, So I Used a Magic Watch to Save Him… But I Saved My Dead Mom Instead
The Fall of the Roman Empire (Or Just My Dad)
The sirens weren’t the wailing kind you hear in movies. They were short, aggressive chirps, accompanied by the heavy thud of boots on marble floors. I stood at the top of the spiraling staircase, clutching the silk railing, watching my life dissolve in real-time. Below, men in windbreakers with three-letter agency acronyms were swarming the foyer. My father, a man who had never looked anything less than invincible in his bespoke Italian suits, was currently being handcuffed face-down on the Persian rug.
“Abby, go to your room!” he shouted, his voice cracking in a way I’d never heard before. Beside him stood Kimberly, his latest girlfriend, looking less like a supportive partner and more like a trapped animal scanning for an exit. She wasn’t looking at him; she was looking at the safe behind the painting.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I was seventeen years old, and until ten minutes ago, my biggest problem had been deciding which island we were visiting for spring break. Now, I was watching officers bag up his laptop and seize the hard drives.
“Ms. Abigail Vance?” A woman in a sharp blazer looked up at me. “We need you to come down, please.”
That was the moment the bubble burst. I went from a private jet, designer clothes kind of girl, to a ward of the state in the span of an afternoon. The assets were frozen. The house was seized. My grandparents in Thailand were too far away to take custody immediately. I stood on the curb with two cardboard boxes containing the few personal items they let me keep, watching the flashing lights reflect off the windows of the home I’d never enter again.
I remember the smell of exhaust and impending rain. I remember the cold realization that my father, the great titan of industry, was just a liar in expensive shoes. And I remember thinking, foolishly, that this was the worst it could get.
Welcome to the Middle of Nowhere
The drive took hours. We left the city skyline behind, trading skyscrapers for strip malls, then strip malls for dense, encroaching forest. By the time the social worker’s sedan crunched onto the gravel driveway, it was 3:00 a.m. The house looked like something out of a dark fairytale—a sprawling, slightly dilapidated Victorian structure swallowed by ivy and shadows.
“Jadis is… unique,” the social worker said, killing the engine. “But she has a good heart.”
The front door creaked open before we even knocked. A woman stood there, framed by the yellow light of the hallway. She wore a velvet robe that looked three decades out of style and held a cat that looked like it wanted to murder me. This was Jadis.
“You’re late,” she said, her voice raspy but warm. “Soup’s cold. But the tea is hot.”
Behind her, a boy about my age leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. He had messy dark hair and eyes that had seen too much. “Fresh meat,” he muttered, loud enough for me to hear.
“Ezra, be nice,” Jadis scolded, ushering me inside. The house smelled of dried herbs, old paper, and cat litter. There were four cats in total, weaving through my legs as I dragged my pathetic boxes inside.
“I’m Abby,” I whispered, feeling smaller than I ever had in my life.
“I know who you are, child,” Jadis said, leading me to a kitchen cluttered with jars and trinkets. She poured me a mug of something that smelled like lavender and dirt. “You’re the girl who lost everything. And now you’re wondering if you can get it back.”
I looked at her sharply. “My dad is innocent. It’s a misunderstanding.”
Ezra snorted from the corner. “Yeah. My mom said the same thing about the petty theft charges. Doesn’t make the handcuffs any looser.”
I glared at him, the hot sting of tears pricking my eyes. “He’s not a thief. He’s a businessman.”
“Same difference,” Ezra said, taking a bite of an apple.
Jadis slammed a hand on the table, silencing us. “Enough. Drink your tea, Abby. Tomorrow, we talk about time. And how much of it you’ve wasted.”
