Chapter 2 - THE FOUR WORDS
“Not my problem anymore.”
The phone went dead. I didn't wait for him to process it, didn't wait for the sputtering outrage or the desperate screaming that usually followed when someone dared defy the Vance patriarch. I simply tapped the red icon, dropped the phone onto its wireless charging pad, and turned back to my dual-monitor setup.
On screen two, a live security feed streamed from the modest, decaying suburban cul-de-sac where my parents were currently trapped.
Through the high-definition lens of a drone camera hovering quietly three hundred feet above their property, I watched my father drop his phone. He was sitting in a cheap plastic lawn chair on a cracked concrete driveway, his shoulders hunched, his face buried in mottled, aging hands. Standing behind him was my mother, her hair dyed a harsh, desperate blonde, wiping her eyes with a dish towel while staring anxiously down the street as if salvation were going to pull up in a silver limousine.
They were waiting for a daughter who had died two years ago on an oncology table.
My intercom chimed.
“Ms. Vance?” My executive assistant’s voice came through crisp and professional. “Mr. Sterling from the restructuring committee is on line one. He has the final signatures for the North American portfolio acquisition.”
“Put him through, Marcus,” I said, adjusting my blazer.
Within minutes, the papers were signed digitally. With a few keystrokes, the entire debt portfolio of Vance & Associates—including the mortgages on my parents' primary residence, my sister Emma’s foreclosed suburban townhouse, and my brother-in-law’s failed manufacturing startup—was transferred directly into my personal holding LLC.
Legally, ethically, and financially, they belonged to me.
May you like
Every single dime my father had hoarded, every lecture he had given me about “earning your keep,” every sacrifice my mother had demanded I make so Emma could have her fairy-tale wedding with white roses and champagne towers—it was all mine now.
And the first thing I did was issue an eviction notice.
