Sixteen-year-old Toby Gentry races to uncover $4.2 million in stolen underworld assets after his pregnant sister-in-law disappears from a locked Charleston cellar, exposing a deadly family conspira...
The inside of the transport van smelled faintly of old gasoline and stale coffee. Maeve slid onto the worn bench seat, her face unreadable. I followed, pulling the door shut with a heavy thud. Bram climbed into the driver’s seat, the engine rumbling to a louder idle.
He didn’t look at us in the rearview mirror, his eyes fixed on the narrow, winding dock road. The van lurched forward, slowly at first, then picked up speed as we left the immediate area of the abandoned port.
“What do you mean, Silas betrayed you?” I asked, breaking the silence. “And what about the Lawson family?”
Bram gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. “Silas, he promised protection. For a long time, he was fair. But then he started expanding, getting greedy.”
He glanced in the mirror, his eyes meeting mine for a split second. “He wants every inch of Charleston. Not just the Gentry properties. Every old family that had a claim, every hidden vault, every piece of historical land. He wants it all.”
“But why?” I pressed. “What’s he getting out of it?”
“Control,” Bram said simply. “And a whole lot of untaxable cash from the underground network he’s building. He uses people like Garrity, the appraiser, to make it all look legitimate on paper.”
Maeve leaned forward. “What about Garrity? What was his real role?”
Bram sighed. “Garrity was paid by Silas to falsify historical titles. Not just for the Gentry estate, but for dozens of properties. He created forged deeds, re-routed ownership, made it look like old land claims were invalid or belonged to shell corporations. Essentially, he stripped every old Charleston family of their legal claim to their properties, piece by piece.”
My mouth went dry. “So, he didn’t just help Maeve. He was working for Silas to take *everything*?”
“He was working for anyone who paid him,” Bram corrected, a bitter edge to his voice. “And Silas paid him well. He created a legal loophole so Silas could just walk in and claim ownership of centuries-old land. Your family’s mansion, the Broad Street properties, the waterfront docks—all of it is essentially gone, legally speaking. Falsified historical titles. They were never yours. They were always Silas’s.”
This was a deeper betrayal than I could have imagined. Not just stolen money, but stolen history, stolen legacy. Garrity had systematically erased our family from the Charleston land records.
“Silas needed a way to legitimize his takeover,” Bram continued. “Garrity provided the paper trail. He’s the key to proving this whole scheme.”
“Where is he now?” Maeve asked, her voice tight.
“Last I heard, he was at his private waterfront estate, tidying up loose ends,” Bram replied, steering the van onto a darker, less-traveled road. “Destroying the original paper deeds he forged. The ones that prove Silas’s syndicate land grab. He’ll be gone by morning.”
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