Chapter 11 - The Unraveling
"How... how do you know about that?" my father stammered, his voice trembling so violently he could barely articulate the words.
"I hire professionals, Dad," I said smoothly. "Unlike you, I don't run my life on lies and secret hard-money loans. I have the complete county filing sitting on my desk right now. One hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars in default. Foreclosure auction in less than two months. Co-signed by Angela."
A low moan escaped his lips. In the background, I could hear my mother sobbing uncontrollably.
"Nancy, please..." he begged, shedding every ounce of the authoritarian arrogance he had displayed in my kitchen three days ago. "You have to help us. If the house goes to auction, we lose everything! We’ll be out on the street! Everything we’ve built for thirty years... gone!"
"You didn't build it, Dad," I corrected him sharply. "You spent it. You mortgaged your future to finance Angela’s failed boutique, to buy cars you couldn't afford, and to maintain an image of wealth you never earned. And then you expected me to work eighty hours a week to secretly bail you out."
"We were going to tell you!" he cried. "At Lily's party! We were going to ask if you could take out a home equity line on your house to pay off the lender! We were going to pay you back!"
"Pay me back?!" I let out a harsh laugh. "You couldn't even pay your basic monthly utility bills! You were going to ask me to risk my daughter's home to save you from your own stupidity!"
"We’re your parents, Nancy!" he roared, trying one last time to summon his old authority. "You owe us your life! We raised you!"
"And I paid you back with two hundred thousand dollars," I slammed my hand onto the desk. "The debt is settled, Dad. In fact, you're overdrawn."
"What are we supposed to do?!" he wept openly now. "Tell me what to do!"
"Call a real estate agent tomorrow morning," I advised coldly. "Put the house on the market immediately as a short sale. Move into a small two-bedroom apartment. And tell Angela to get a real job."
"No!" my mother’s voice suddenly shrieked into the phone, taking the receiver from Dad. "We are not selling our house! We won't live in an apartment like poor people! You have the money, Nancy! You have over three hundred thousand in your business reserve account! I saw your tax statements last year!"
I froze. "You went through my private tax documents in my office?"
"We are your family! Nothing of yours is private from us!" she screamed hysterically. "If you don't give us the hundred and thirty-five thousand by Monday, I will go to every news station in the city! I will tell everyone that the owner of Miller Design Studio lets her elderly parents starve and lose their home! I will ruin you, Nancy! I swear to God I will ruin you!"
The sheer, unhinged malice in her voice was breathtaking. She was willing to burn down my entire life if I refused to hand over my child's future to pay for her lies.
"Try it, Mom," I whispered into the receiver, my voice turning into a lethal blade of frost. "Try it, and watch what happens."
I ended the call and immediately dialed Marcus Vance.
May you like
"Marcus," I said when he answered. "My mother just attempted to extort $135,000 from me using stolen tax documents and threats of public defamation. I want emergency restraining orders filed first thing tomorrow morning. Against all of them."
"I'm already drafting the paperwork," Marcus replied. "They just crossed from civil conflict straight into criminal extortion. They're done, Nancy. Completely done."
Related Stories
