And then he broke the legs of one bigger fish’s wife, and learned, far too late, just how small a pond he had been swimming in.

Chapter 7 — What Camila Found

Three months earlier, Camila had noticed something illegal in the course of her work as a senior title attorney.

Trent Prescott’s firm, Prescott Development Group, had systematically purchased six family farms surrounding a planned federal transportation corridor.

On paper, the six sellers appeared completely unrelated, six separate transactions with no visible connection.

They were not unrelated.

All six families, Camila discovered, had been coerced into selling far below market value — pressured out of their land through forged code violations, suspicious tax liens that appeared from nowhere, and, when the paperwork was not enough, direct physical threats delivered by county deputies in uniform.