Chapter 4 - The Changing of the Locks
By 2:00 p.m., I had returned to the Lincoln Park house. Ethan was safe at my aunt's home in the suburbs, playing in a backyard where nobody would ever judge him.
A large commercial van from a high-security locksmith company was parked in my driveway. Three technicians were actively replacing the digital keypads, the deadbolts, and the garage door frequencies.
Inside the house, Vivian and Brooke were frantically packing suitcases in the master bedroom, their clothes scattered across the bed like debris from a storm.
"You can't do this!" Vivian shrieked when she saw me standing in the doorway, her voice cracking with indignation. "This is my son's house! He built this life for you! You were nothing but a quiet girl from a construction family before he married you!"
"My father built the foundation of this city while your son was trying to figure out how to inherit his way out of debt, Vivian," I said, my voice low and completely level. "This house was purchased using a sole-inheritance trust from my grandmother. Richard’s name is not on the deed. It never was. He merely signed the occupancy rider as a spouse, a rider that has just been terminated by a temporary eviction order based on domestic endangerment."
Brooke stepped forward, holding Chloe, her eyes red from crying. "Amanda, please... the baby has nowhere to go. The apartment downtown... Richard said the lease was paid for the year, but the manager called me an hour ago saying the corporate card bounced. They're locks are being changed tomorrow too."
"Then I suggest you take whatever money Richard has left in his personal wallets and find a motel," I said, looking down at the baby girl. I felt a momentary pang of sorrow for the child—she hadn't chosen her parents—but I looked at the marble floor where my own son had been forced to crawl just eighteen hours prior, and the mercy dried up instantly. "You stood in this room and smiled while an old woman made my four-year-old boy crawl like an animal. You wanted my life, Brooke? You can have the man who came with it. But you don't get the money."
The front door opened, and Richard walked in, his suit rumpled, his tie gone. He looked completely broken, his phone clutched in his hand as if he were waiting for a miracle call that wasn't coming.
"Amanda," he said, his voice hollow. "The bank... they froze my personal accounts too. They said there’s a judicial hold because of a corporate lawsuit. I can't even pay for gas."
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"That’s because Whitman-Vance has filed a civil complaint against you for the recovery of the stolen nine hundred thousand dollars," I said, stepping past him to hand the locksmith a check for his services. "You have five minutes to take your mother, your mistress, and your child out of my doorway. If you are still on this property when the clock strikes three, the police detail down the street will arrest all three of you for criminal trespass."
Richard looked at his mother, then at Brooke, who was staring at him with a sudden, ugly realization that the billionaire she had targeted was suddenly worth less than the silk robe she was wearing. Without another word, he picked up two of the heavy suitcases and walked out into the cold afternoon air, his family following him like refugees from a fallen kingdom.
