At 2 AM, My Dad Texted: “Grab Your Sister and Run. Don’t Trust Your Mother.”

“Some asshole has been following us since we left, probably drunk idiots playing games.”

He said. I twisted around to look and recognized Mom’s SUV, close enough now that I could see her face through the windshield, set and determined.

“That’s our mother. She’s dangerous. We need to lose her right now.”

I said to the driver. He looked at me like I was insane until Mom’s SUV rammed us from behind, hard enough to throw both Becca and me forward against the front seats.

The driver swore louder and floored it. The old taxi responded sluggishly as Mom hit us again.

We were on a semi-rural road with minimal traffic, exactly the wrong place for a chase scene. Mom pulled alongside us, and I could see her clearly now, her face twisted into something I didn’t recognize.

She was trying to force us off the road, her SUV heavier and more powerful than the taxi. The driver was panicking, swerving wildly trying to keep control while Mom repeatedly slammed into our passenger side.

Becca was screaming. I was on my phone calling 911, shouting our location and situation to a dispatcher who kept asking me to slow down and repeat myself.

Mom made one more hard slam, and the taxi spun out. It rotated twice before sliding off the road into a shallow ditch.

The impact threw us around the interior despite seat belts, my head connecting with the window hard enough to see stars. Mom’s SUV screeched to a stop.,

I watched her climb out, walking toward our crashed taxi with purpose. The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, dazed or unconscious, and Becca was crying beside me.

I grabbed her hand and kicked open the door on the far side. I dragged her out and into the drainage ditch running alongside the road.

We ran through brush and darkness while Mom shouted behind us, her voice carrying across the quiet night.

“Girls, stop! I’m trying to protect you. The FBI is lying. Your father is lying. I just need to talk to you.”

But her actions didn’t match her words; they didn’t match someone trying to protect rather than harm. The drainage ditch connected to a culvert running under the road, and we crawled through it.

We emerged on the far side, muddy and scraped. Behind us, I could hear sirens approaching, the 911 call finally producing a response.

Mom must have heard them too because her shouting stopped. I heard her SUV engine start, tires squealing as she fled the scene.,

Police cars arrived with lights flashing, officers jumping out to check the crashed taxi and search the area. We emerged from the culvert with hands raised, shouting that we’d called 911 and we were the victims.

One officer approached carefully, hand on his weapon, while his partner checked the taxi driver, who was coming around slowly. I explained everything in a rush while Becca cried against my shoulder.

The officer looked skeptical until I mentioned FBI Special Agent Victoria Reeves by name and showed him the text from Dad. His expression changed.

He radioed something coded to his dispatcher before telling us to wait in his patrol car while he verified our story. 20 minutes later, black SUVs arrived with federal agents who showed badges and took custody of us from the local police.

Agent Reeves was a woman in her 40s with sharp eyes and an expression that suggested she’d seen too much to be surprised by anything. She wrapped emergency blankets around both of us and guided us into one of the vehicles.,

“Your father is alive.”

She said immediately. I felt something in my chest unclench.

“He was attacked in his hotel room tonight but fought off his assailant and escaped. He’s in protective custody and asking about you two.”

“Your mother’s associates failed to kill him, so they shifted to targeting you girls, probably hoping to use you as leverage to keep your father from testifying.”

Becca was crying harder now, relief mixed with exhaustion and trauma.

“Where’s Mom? Did you arrest her?”

She asked. Agent Reeves shook her head grimly.

“She fled the scene before local police could detain her. We have warrants out now for attempted murder, assault, fraud, and about a dozen other charges.”

“Every law enforcement agency in the state is looking for her, but she’s proven to be very good at disappearing when she wants to.”

The drive to the FBI field office passed in a blur of exhaustion and shock. They processed us through security and took our statements separately, recording everything about the night and Mom’s behavior.,

Someone brought food and coffee and blankets, treating us like fragile things that might break with rough handling. Dad arrived around dawn, looking worse than I’d ever seen him.

His face was bruised, his left arm was in a sling, and he moved like his ribs hurt. But when he saw us in the conference room, he broke down completely, pulling both of us into a careful hug that made Becca sob into his chest.

“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I put you through this. I thought I could handle it quietly. I thought I could protect you.”

He kept saying. The full story emerged over the next few hours.

Mom had been running a real estate fraud scheme for five years, using her license to facilitate money laundering for a criminal organization. Dad discovered evidence of it by accident.

He found communications that made it clear she wasn’t just involved, but central to the operation. He’d gone to the FBI rather than confronting her directly.

He’d spent three months secretly gathering evidence while pretending everything was normal. Tonight, Mom’s associates had learned about his cooperation through a leak in the investigation.,

They’d sent people to his hotel to eliminate the witness problem. But Dad had been paranoid enough to have extra locks and a plan for exactly this scenario.

He’d fought them off and escaped, but not before sending us that warning text.

“Knowing that if they’d come for him, they’d come for us next.”

Dad explained.

“She was never planning to hurt you directly. She wanted to grab you before the FBI could use you as collateral to force me not to testify. But when you ran, when you didn’t come home, she panicked.”

“The woman who chased you tonight wasn’t your mother protecting her kids. She was a criminal protecting her operation by any means necessary.”

The trial happened eight months later. Mom was arrested at the Canadian border trying to flee with false documents and substantial cash.

The evidence Dad and the FBI had gathered was overwhelming, documenting years of fraud and money laundering involving millions of dollars. 17 people were charged in the conspiracy.,

Mom received the longest sentence: 25 years for fraud, conspiracy, attempted murder, and a list of other crimes that took the prosecutor 10 minutes to read.

She never looked at us during the trial, never showed remorse or tried to explain. The woman in the defendant’s chair was a stranger wearing my mother’s face.

I understood finally that we’d been living with a criminal our entire lives, just never knowing it. Dad testified for two days, his voice steady despite visible emotional pain.

He explained how he’d fallen in love with someone who didn’t really exist, who’d been performing a role the entire time.

Becca and I live with Dad now in a different state under partial witness protection. It’s not full relocation and name changes, but enough security that we sleep without nightmares about SUVs ramming our car.

We’re both in therapy, processing the betrayal and trauma, and learning to trust again after having the fundamental safety of family shattered.

Dad is rebuilding his consulting business and trying to forgive himself for not seeing the warning signs sooner and for exposing us to danger he never knew existed.

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