Chapter 5: Blood on the Track
The air at the suburban Oakridge Equestrian Country Club was crisp, smelling of rich soil and pine. But on the private VIP track, the peaceful silence was shattered by the thunderous sound of galloping hooves and grating laughter.
I stood rigidly by the pristine white viewing fence, my hands jammed deep into my coat pockets, staring with a heart made of ice at Liam and Khloe in the distance.
Khloe was dressed in a ridiculously tight, custom-tailored professional equestrian outfit that looked like it belonged in a fashion magazine, not on a dirt track. She was sitting in the saddle of a massive, magnificent black purebred stallion, sharing the ride with Liam, who sat close behind her, his arms wrapped possessively around her waist. Their obnoxious laughter echoed across the empty arena, sounding exceptionally vile.
The club manager stood a few paces behind me, physically trembling as he nervously held a clipboard containing ownership transfer documents.
“Miss Sterling, I… I am so terribly sorry,” the manager stammered, wiping sweat from his brow. “This black purebred, Midnight, was personally purchased by your grandfather at an international auction specifically as a gift for your daughter. The registered owner on all our paperwork has always been little Miss Gracie. But these past few days, Mr. Lawson keeps bringing Miss Carmichael here, demanding she ride it. With his status… we honestly didn’t dare stop them.”
Gracie stood beside me, her small hands tugging anxiously at the hem of my trench coat. Seeing the beautiful black stallion—the horse that her beloved great-grandfather had left for her—being ridden roughly by the woman who broke our family, tears welled up in her bright eyes.
“Mommy,” Gracie whispered, her voice breaking. “That’s the horsey Great-Grandpa left just for me. Why is that mean lady on him?”
“Don’t worry, my sweet Gracie,” I said, gently rubbing my daughter’s back, never taking my eyes off the track. “Mommy is getting him back for you today. I promise.”
Just then, at the far curve of the track, Khloe noticed us standing by the fence. A vicious, malicious glint flashed in her eyes.
Instead of slowing down, she suddenly raised her leather riding crop high in the air. She cracked it down hard across the horse’s flank, simultaneously kicking the stallion’s ribs aggressively with the sharp spurs of her boots.
Midnight, a highly trained but sensitive purebred, panicked at the sudden, abusive strike. The stallion let out a loud, terrified whinny, his eyes rolling back in fear. He surged forward, breaking into a mad, uncontrollable gallop, charging directly toward the section of the viewing fence where Gracie and I were standing.
“Oh no! Help! The horse is completely out of control! Get out of the way!” Khloe screamed from the saddle.
But her voice betrayed her. Under the fake panic, there was an undeniable, sick thrill of excitement. She was intentionally guiding the beast right at us.
Sitting behind Khloe, Liam didn’t reach forward to pull back on the reins. He didn’t try to stop the horse. Instead, he gripped Khloe’s waist tighter, letting her whip the thousand-pound animal into a violent frenzy.
“Mommy!” Gracie burst into terrified, hysterical tears, trying to run.
My blood turned to absolute zero.
When the charging stallion was less than twenty feet away, the ground shaking beneath its hooves, I moved with terrifying precision. I grabbed a heavy, coiled lead rope from the fence post, swiftly pushed Gracie safely behind the reinforced steel corner of the barrier, and stepped directly out onto the dirt track, putting myself between my daughter and the charging beast.
“Midnight! Halt!” I roared, my voice cutting through the rushing wind like a thunderclap.
This was the specific, secret verbal command my grandfather had personally trained into the horse, a failsafe deeply ingrained in its psychology.
Hearing the deeply familiar, authoritative command, the stallion reacted instantly. He planted his front hooves hard into the dirt, rearing up majestically on his hind legs, stopping dead in his tracks less than two feet away from my face.
Due to the massive, sudden shift in momentum, Khloe lost her grip entirely. She shrieked as she was violently launched forward over the saddle and the horse’s neck, flying through the air before crashing heavily, face-first, onto the hard, packed dirt of the track.
“Ahhhh! My leg! My ribs! I think my ribs are broken!” Khloe writhed in sheer agony on the ground, clutching her side, her face turning chalk-white as she gasped for air in the dust.
“Khloe!” Liam scrambled clumsily off the side of the settled horse in a blind panic. He rushed to Khloe, pulling her groaning body into his arms.
He then whipped his head around, pointing a trembling, furious finger right at my face, roaring in a blind, animalistic rage.
“Serena, you toxic, psychotic bitch! How dare you intentionally spook Khloe’s horse?! She is carrying my baby! If anything happens to her or my child, I swear to God I will make you and that worthless brat of yours pay with your lives!”
I didn’t flinch. I slowly looked down at Khloe, who was moaning pathetically in the dirt. I brushed the dust off the sleeve of my coat and calmly reached out to the terrified club manager. I snatched the long, braided leather riding whip from his trembling hands.
Before Liam could even process what was happening, before he could take a breath to scream again, I snapped my wrist back and swung the long whip forward with every ounce of strength in my body.
CRACK!
The heavy leather whip sliced through the air, breaking the sound barrier with a deafening pop. It slashed brutally across Liam’s shoulder, tearing straight through his expensive, tailored polo shirt and ripping a deep, bloody gash across his flesh.
“Argh! Serena! Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Liam hissed in excruciating pain, collapsing to his knees and desperately grabbing his bleeding shoulder. His eyes were bloodshot, bulging with shock and fury as he gathered himself, preparing to lunge at me.
“Take one more step forward, Liam. I dare you.”
I gripped the handle of the whip tightly, glaring down at him with an aura of absolute, lethal authority.
“Forget whipping you. Even if I took a shotgun and crippled both of you right here in the dirt, the police would classify it as justified self-defense. You intentionally instigated a thousand-pound animal to trample my five-year-old daughter. That is reckless endangerment, attempted manslaughter, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. There are ten cameras on this track.”
Liam was paralyzed by the sheer, unyielding ruthlessness in my eyes. He stopped dead in his tracks, the fight draining out of him, replaced by a creeping dread.
With my left hand, I reached into the deep pocket of my coat and pulled out the thick stack of printed, heavily encrypted Cayman Islands offshore bank transfer statements I had stolen from Khloe’s bag.
I threw them directly at Liam’s face. The crisp white papers fluttered down like a blizzard, burying him and Khloe in undeniable proof of their crimes.
Liam instinctively grabbed a page that landed on his chest. After just one frantic glance at the account numbers and his own forged signatures, it was as if he had been struck by lightning. His face drained from an angry, flushed red to a sickly, corpse-like gray.
“These are the lovely little gifts you left for me hidden in your mistress’s designer bag,” I stated, standing over him like a majestic judge delivering a death sentence.
“Liam, over the past three years, you have used these two specific offshore accounts to evade hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate taxes for Vanguard. You illegally embezzled company funds directly into Khloe’s name, bypassing the board entirely. Tell me, Liam… if I FedEx this entire stack of evidence to the IRS Criminal Investigation Unit and the FBI today, do you honestly think you will still be sitting here in the dirt, barking at me like a stray dog?”
Hearing this, Khloe ignored the excruciating pain in her ribs. Her face turned ashen as she scrambled in the dirt, grabbing Liam’s pant leg. “Mr. Lawson! How is this possible? How did she get those files? You said they were safe!”
Liam shook violently, staring up at me. He gritted his teeth, attempting a low, desperate whisper. “Serena… I am the CEO of Vanguard. What good does it possibly do you if I fall and go to prison? Don’t forget, you are still part of the Lawson family. My ruin is your ruin.”
“The exact second you targeted my daughter,” I replied, my voice a dead, emotionless void, “I stopped being part of your family.”
I turned my back on them. I walked over, took Midnight’s reins, grabbed Gracie’s trembling little hand, and didn’t bother giving the pathetic, broken couple another glance.
“I am taking my grandfather’s horse home today, Liam,” I called over my shoulder as I walked away. “As for your massive financial crimes… we will settle that score in the next round.”
