Chapter 7 - The Unravelling
Within thirty minutes, the police cruisers had pulled away from the driveway, their red and blue lights flashing against the wet pavement. Ethan, Diane, and Marcus Vance were sitting in the back of police cars, headed to the county jail without bail.
Cole and Ava were left standing on the curb in the rain, surrounded by their hasty armfuls of clothes stuffed into trash bags.
I stood on the dry porch—the exact same porch where my mother had been left to shiver 24 hours ago.
"Elena, please!" Ava cried out, shivering in her thin designer shirt. "Where are we supposed to go? Cole doesn't have any money!"
"You can stay at a hotel," I said coldly. "Or you can call your mother from jail. But if either of you steps foot across my property line again, I will have the officers come back and pick you up too."
"You heartless bitch!" Cole yelled, slamming his hand onto the hood of his car. "Ethan gave you everything!"
"Ethan stole $180,000 from my mother and tried to steal my future," I replied through the crisp night air. "You have two minutes to clear your cars from my driveway."
I slammed the front door shut and locked every bolt.
The silence inside the house was absolute. I walked around the living room, turning off the loud music Cole had left playing, blowing out Diane’s scented candles, and kicking Ava’s leftover trash out of my office.
The next morning, news of the arrest hit the local business journal.
Ethan’s "expanding business"—which he had bragged about endlessly to his friends—turned out to be nothing more than a shell company created to absorb fraudulent loans. When the bank ran an emergency audit following his arrest, they discovered Ethan had been embezzling money from his previous employer as well.
At 10:00 AM, Ethan’s defense attorney called Sarah Lin, begging for a plea deal.
"They're terrified, Elena," Sarah told me over the phone while I sat in my quiet kitchen, drinking coffee. "Diane is facing up to 8 years for conspiracy and financial fraud. Marcus is looking at 12 years because of his past forgery convictions. And Ethan is facing federal mortgage fraud charges. His lawyer says Ethan is willing to sign over any claim to the house, return every asset, and surrender all rights if you agree to drop the civil suits."
I took a slow sip of my coffee. "Tell his lawyer I’ll consider dropping the civil suit on one condition."
"What's that?" Sarah asked.
"Ethan hands over his bank accounts to repay the $25,000 he secretly charged to my mother’s emergency credit card over the last six months."
Sarah gasped. "He did what?"
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"I audited my mom's financial statements this morning," I said, my voice cold as ice. "Ethan convinced my mom to give him a secondary card 'for house renovation supplies' three months ago. He used it to pay for Diane’s trip to Miami and Cole’s car payments."
"That monster," Sarah hissed. "Consider it done. I'll make sure the prosecutor squeezes every cent out of his liquidated assets."
