Chapter 3 - The Wolves at the Door
🚨 FACEBOOK TRENDING HEADLINE: "My husband's 'best friend' served me eviction papers at midnight—but he didn't know I was recording every single word!"I closed my laptop, hid the hard drive securely in my waistband, and walked downstairs. My heart was pounding, but my mind was completely detached, floating in a state of cold, calculated survival.
I opened the front door, leaving the security chain attached.
"Marcus. Cassandra. It’s nearly nine o’clock at night. What do you want?"
Marcus Vance offered a tight, professional smile that no longer reached his eyes. "Bridget, please open the door. We're just here to settle things quietly. Cassandra told me about the unfortunate scene at the birthday party. We want to avoid a public lawsuit."
"There is no lawsuit, Marcus," I said coldly. "The will she showed me is a clumsy forgery. And you know it."
Cassandra stepped forward, shoving Marcus aside. She looked manic, her eyes wide. "It doesn't matter what you think, Bridget! Marcus is the executor of Adam’s estate. We just filed the official paperwork with the Suffolk County Probate Court this afternoon. And we brought something else."
Marcus reached into his briefcase and pulled out a document, sliding it through the crack in the door. It was an official court summons, coupled with an emergency injunction.
"As the court-recognized executor, and given the new evidence of an undocumented biological heir, the court has placed a temporary freeze on all shared assets," Marcus explained, his voice smooth and devoid of emotion. "Furthermore, Cassandra has filed a safety injunction. She claims you threatened her and the child at the party today. You have forty-eight hours to vacate the Beacon Hill property until the probate dispute is resolved."
"Vacate my own home?" My voice shook, not from fear, but from absolute rage. "Adam bought this house with me! My name is on the deed!"
"The deed was held under a joint tenancy with rights of survivorship, yes," Marcus countered smoothly. "However, under Massachusetts law, if a child is born out of wedlock and paternity is established post-mortem, the child is entitled to an omitted child’s share, which overrides standard survivorship clauses if fraud or concealment can be proven. We are alleging you hid Adam's relationship with Cassandra to secure the property for yourself."
"You are disgusting," I whispered, staring at the man who had given the best man speech at my wedding.
"We're just getting started, sister," Cassandra hissed. "Oh, and by the way? You mentioned Adam's sterility today. How sad that you didn't know the truth. Marcus managed to get a bone marrow sample from the medical examiner's office before Adam was cremated. The independent DNA test came back today. It's a 99.9% match. Lucas is his son. The science doesn't lie."
They turned and walked down the steps, leaving me alone in the dark entryway.
I closed the door and locked it. My hands were shaking. How could the DNA match if Adam was sterile? It was biologically impossible.
Suddenly, the words from the mysterious text message flashed in my mind: Look at the home security footage from the night before his headache started.
May you like
I ran back upstairs, opened my laptop, and logged into our home security cloud storage. I scrolled back to twenty-two days ago—the night before Adam collapsed from the "aneurysm."
What I saw on the video camera footage made me vomit right onto the bedroom floor.
