he asked in a calm, deliberate voice. I ignored the question, walked over to my father, and stood beside him. I positioned myself so he was behind my shoulder.
“What’s going on here?” I asked flatly. My father opened his mouth, but nothing came out. The bald one answered for him.
“Nothing unusual. Your father owes money. We came to settle it the easy way. Papers are all in order. His signature’s on them. Nobody’s robbing him. He knew what he was doing.”
He lifted the paper slightly, as if that gave him the right to do anything he wanted. I turned and looked at my father. He stood pale, unable to meet my eyes—or theirs.
There was more truth in that guilty silence than in anything else. “So it’s true?” I asked quietly. My father swallowed hard.
“Alex, I’ll explain everything later.” I nodded once.
“Later. But not right now.”
The guy in the leather jacket gave a short, ugly laugh. “Hear that? Even the son gets it. Later is later.”
“Right now your dad signs the papers and we all go home. We don’t want anything that isn’t ours. We just want what we’re owed.” He said it boldly, but not with the same easy swagger as before.
They clearly wanted me to lose my temper and start swinging too soon. That would have made things simple. Then I’d be the hothead, the problem, the excuse.
But I was seeing a different picture. I saw the silent bruiser shift to block my path. I saw the bald one holding the paper casually while staying fully alert.
I even saw my father gripping the edge of the table to hide the tremor in his hand. I held out my hand. “Let me see the papers.”
The bald one didn’t move at first. “What for?”
“I want to read what exactly he signed.”
He paused for effect, then handed me the sheet. At first glance it looked clean enough: amount, deadline, signature, collateral clause. But the terms were far too convenient for them.
It had all been set up too neatly for a man who’d been tricked into a corner. I scanned the page and understood the real plan right away. They’d left my father only one possible outcome—lose the property.
Papers like that aren’t written to help somebody repay a debt. They’re written to take what’s theirs from the start. I handed the sheet back.
“This isn’t a fair deal,” I said coldly. “It’s a setup.” The guy in the leather jacket jerked his shoulder.
“Watch your mouth. Grown men are handling business here.” I turned my eyes on him.
“I am watching my mouth. I’m keeping it simple.”
“You came into somebody else’s yard, you’re pressuring a man in his own home, and you’re pretending it’s all legal. It’s not happening.” The bruiser stepped forward slowly.
He was the kind who relied less on words than on sheer presence. He stopped a step away from me and stared down, expecting me to give ground out of instinct.
I didn’t move. “And what exactly are you going to do about it?”
