Chapter 2
Julian scrambled backward on the hardwood floor, clutching his chest where Elena’s boot had left a stark, dusty footprint on his white shirt. His breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps. Above them, Helen shrieked, clutching the banister as if her whole world were tilting off its axis.
“Are you insane?” Helen yelled, her voice cracking with sudden, unmasked panic. She hurried down the stairs, her black skirt swishing loudly. “Julian! Get up! Call the police! Have this ungrateful wretch arrested for assault and trespassing!”
Elena didn’t blink. She reached into the pocket of her dark pants, withdrew a thick manila folder, and tossed it onto the polished surface of the entry table. The manila envelope slid across the wood and came to a rest right beside Julian’s trembling fingers.
“You can call whoever you want, Helen,” Elena said, her tone entirely devoid of heat, which made it all the more terrifying. “The police won’t help you. Neither will your high-priced attorneys in the city. Read the first page. It’s the deed transfer, recorded at eight-thirty this morning.”
Julian slowly reached out, his fingers trembling as he pulled the flap of the envelope open. He pulled out the topmost document, his eyes scanning the legal jargon. The color drained completely from his face, leaving him looking pasty and sickly under the warm foyer lights.
“This... this isn't possible,” Julian whispered, looking up at Elena with wide, terrified eyes. “The trust... the trust was locked. We had the majority shares. We voted you out.”
“You voted out the beneficiary of a revocable trust that you thought had expired,” Elena corrected, stepping closer to tower over him. “My father was a cautious man, Julian. He knew your father was a gambler, and he knew you were a parasite. He left the primary estate under a secondary corporate entity. An entity that I control entirely as the sole managing director. You didn’t inherit the house. You inherited a thirty-day lease on a property that I chose to foreclose on early due to gross breach of contract.”
Helen snatched the paper from her son’s shaking hands. Her eyes darted across the lines of text, her lips moving silently as she read the clauses. When she reached the signature line at the bottom, bearing the stamp of the state registrar and the signature of the family’s longtime corporate counsel, her hands began to shake violently.
“This is a forgery,” Helen gasped, though the conviction had completely drained from her voice. “We’ll fight this. We have connections!”
“Your connections dropped you the moment the federal audit began yesterday,” Elena replied, turning toward the door. “The company accounts you’ve been draining for the past three years to fund your trips to Monaco? They’ve been frozen. Every car in the garage, every piece of art on these walls, and every designer suit in your closets belongs to the estate. Which means it belongs to me.”
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Julian pushed himself up to his knees, his face twisted in a pathetic mix of rage and terror. “You can’t just throw us out into the street! We have nowhere to go!”
“You have until noon,” Elena repeated calmly. “Pack light.”
