It wasn't a single tow truck this time, but an entire convoy pulling into view exactly as Wade and Calvin had arranged hours earlier. Calvin Roark stepped out first, walked straight to Wade, and reviewed the property deed one more time before giving his crew the signal to begin. Rebecca joined the call from her office, documenting every violation and every refusal to leave in real time as the confrontation unfolded.
Only then did Marissa seem to grasp what Wade actually intended to do with the fleet she had just driven onto his land. She ran back toward her SUV, hoping to escape before anything could happen to it, only to find the exit completely blocked by her own convoy packed bumper-to-bumper across the only way out. It was a logistical mistake with no easy fix, and it was entirely her own doing.
Calvin started with the vehicle nearest the gate, hooking the chains into place with practiced speed, and raising the front wheels off the ground within seconds. Marissa screamed that if he touched that vehicle, she would have him arrested on the spot, her voice cracking with a fury she hadn't expected to need that morning. Calvin barely reacted, telling her calmly that he was simply the towing company doing the job he'd been legally hired to do.
The first SUV disappeared down the driveway, followed almost immediately by the second, each one hauled away with the same procedural detachment Redline's crew had used on Wade's vehicles hours earlier. Wade didn't laugh, didn't gloat, and didn't say a single provocative word as the tally climbed. He simply stood near the gate, marking each departing vehicle against a running list, murmuring the numbers to himself as they passed: "One of 29, two of 29, three of 29."
Increasingly desperate, Marissa called Troy Kessler and demanded that Redline send trucks back immediately to stop what was happening. Troy didn't answer, having realized hours earlier that the 22-vehicle operation he'd carried out for her was quickly becoming a legal disaster he wanted no part of.