My Eight Brothers Gave Me a Scary Toy as a Joke… Wait, It Actually Saved Me Chapter 05
Prescott Group formally sued me.
The reasoning was so absurd I almost laughed.
They claimed every idea, every material, every piece of
equipment I’d ever used came from the Prescott family.
Which meant Fearless Foundry belonged to them.
Nolan personally represented them.
Dark suit, steady voice, right into the cameras.
Miss Prescott has benefited from the Prescott family’s
resources for years, yet she’s maliciously claimed family assets
as personal achievements. Prescott Group will pursue its
rights through legal channels.”
Reid turned over a set of server logs.
They showed I’d once uploaded the core files to Prescott Group’s servers.
My seventh brother, Wesley Prescott, a rising artist, put out a
long post claiming my visual designs were ripped from his art.
Graham sent someone to deliver a settlement agreement.
All I had to do was say, publicly, that I’d been wrong about
Sloane, that the project was hers, and drop every accusation.
In return, they’d take me back into the family and let me
stay on the project, as their sister.
The last line read:
Tessa will be fully reinstated as a member of the Prescott family.
stared at those words until my vision blurred.
There was a time I would have given anything to belong to them.
I’d wanted Graham to pick me up from school.
I’d wanted Nolan to help me with my homework without sighing.
When I was sick, I’d wanted Adrian to ask if I was okay before
asking if Sloane was scared.
Now those words made my skin crawl.
Go back and keep being Sloane’s ghost designer? Was that the deal?
The jack–in–the–box scoffed from the table.
[The trash can figured out its lid was loose, so now it wants to
shove you back in and nail you shut.]
[Don’t sign it.]
[Welcome home is just code for welcome back to the beatings.]
I tore up the agreement.
Camille connected me with an independent forensics firm and a legal team.
We submitted the full chain of evidence: every recording,
every photograph I’d saved.
Here was the real irony. Several of Prescott Group’s bestselling
horror toys had safety features pulled straight from proposals
I’d written for the family as a kid.
Their own products had scared and hurt me more times than I could count.
So I wrote those proposals hoping that at least other kids
wouldn’t go through the same thing.
They used every one.
They never credited me once.
Wesley’s “original” artwork was published eleven months
after I’d already registered my designs.
The case hadn’t even reached court before regulators came
knocking on Prescott Group’s door.
They brought Reid in for questioning on suspicion of illegal
system intrusion and data tampering
Nolan faced an immediate disciplinary hearing for falsifying
evidence. His law license was suspended, pending investigation.
The financing deal Graham had been chasing fell through.
Prescott Group’s stock kept sliding.
Sloane finally began to panic.
In public, she kept crying. Kept saying she trusted them.
In private, she forged Graham’s digital signature and wired
an international project deposit into her own accounts.
The jack–in–the–box teetered on the edge of my desk.
[Do you see that?]
[You haven’t even pushed them and they’re already tripping
over each other to fall in.]
smiled, dropped my head, and got back to work.