Chapter 5 - Severing the Bloodline
We walked down the curved staircase. The house that had once felt like my childhood home now seemed like a crypt, decorated with the stolen artifacts of my stolen life.
Belle stood up as we reached the bottom step. She had washed her face, but her eyes were swollen and red. “Zaden... please. Are you really going to let them put Dad in prison? What am I going to do about school? My tuition is due in three weeks!”
I stopped and looked at her. Really looked at her. For months, I had seen her Instagram posts: luxury ski resorts in Colorado, designer dresses at galas, champagne brunches at five-star hotels. And I remembered calling her last December from a payphone at a truck stop because my cell service had been disconnected, begging her for fifty dollars so I could replace a flat tire.
She had told me: *“Zaden, you really need to get your act together. Dad says you’re just leeching off people. I’m not enabling your dysfunction.”*
“How much was your purse, Belle?” I asked, pointing to the leather bag resting on the console table.
She blinked, confused. “What?”
“The bag. How much?”
“It... it was sixteen hundred dollars,” she stammered.
“Sixteen hundred dollars,” I repeated softly. “Last January, the temperature in Augusta dropped to fourteen degrees. The heating core in my Civic was dead. I spent three nights sleeping under newspapers in the backseat, wearing four shirts and three pairs of socks, trying not to let my toes go numb. I had forty-three cents in my checking account.”
Belle flinched as if I had struck her.
“Zaden, she didn't know the full extent—” Mom began, stepping forward with her hands clasped.
“She knew enough!” I snapped, my voice ringing off the high ceilings. “She knew Dad was taking money that didn't belong to him. She whispered it right at the table: *‘Dad, you told me he would never find out.’* That means you knew there was a secret, Belle. You knew someone was paying the bill for your five-thousand-dollar weekend getaways, and you didn't care who it was as long as the champagne kept flowing!”
Belle began to cry again, but this time, there was no remorse in her tears—only the panic of a spoiled child whose playground had been padlocked.
“Mrs. Cross,” Malcolm addressed my mother, presenting a separate set of documents from his briefcase. “This is an emergency lis pendens on this residential property. Because marital assets and funds traced directly to the Highland Crest Holdings account were used to pay down the principal on this primary residence’s second mortgage, this house is now subject to civil forfeiture proceedings as proceeds of illegal financial activity.”
Mom gasped, stumbling back against the banister. “You’re taking my home?”
“It was never entirely yours, Eleanor,” Grandma Evelyn said without a shred of pity. “You paid the mortgage with my grandson’s blood and dignity. You will have seventy-two hours to vacate the premises with your personal clothing. The furnishings, art, and vehicles registered to Highland Crest will remain for the receiver.”
“Mother, please!” Mom dropped to her knees, clutching at Grandma’s woolen coat. “I’m your daughter-in-law! I’ve been your son’s wife for thirty years!”
Grandma Evelyn gently pulled the hem of her coat from Mom’s grasp.
May you like
“You stood in that kitchen every Thanksgiving and Christmas and prayed over our food, Eleanor. You thanked God for your family’s blessings while my grandson was shivering in an alleyway three miles from your church. Do not invoke family to me. You are strangers to this bloodline.”
Grandma turned her back on them, took my arm, and walked out the door into the crisp, biting night. Behind us, the front door clicked shut, leaving behind the sobbing echoes of the people who had built a kingdom out of my ruin.
