Chapter 2 - The Truth in the Folder
"What is that?" Evelyn asked, her voice losing its sharp, demanding edge and replacing it with a sudden, tense tremor. She looked at the blue folder, then at Lucas, whose face was completely devoid of the warmth he usually showed his family. "Lucas, don't play games. We are family. Kimberly is your sister, and she needs this space. You promised you would help us."
"I promised I would support my family," Lucas said, his voice dropping into a cold, steady register. "And my family is sitting right there, holding herself together because her grandmother just threw her childhood into a trash bag."
He opened the blue folder on the kitchen island and turned it around, pointing to a document stamped with the official seal of the state registry.
"Look at the name on the title, Mom," Lucas said.
Evelyn leaned forward, her eyes scanning the page. Kimberly took a step closer, her hand dropping from her pregnant belly as she squinted at the text.
"The owner of Unit 4B, Silver Creek Residences..." Evelyn read aloud, her voice growing fainter with every word. "Sarah Vance."
She stopped. She looked up at me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
"No," Kimberly whispered, shaking her head. "That’s impossible. You told us you bought this place, Lucas! You said you got the mortgage! Sarah was just a low-level consultant when you married her. She didn't have this kind of money!"
"I didn't get a mortgage, Kimberly," Lucas said, looking at his sister with pure disgust. "Because when Sarah and I married, we decided to pool our resources. The down payment, the cash buy-out, and seventy percent of the funding for this apartment came from Sarah’s personal savings and her family’s trust. When we signed the paperwork, I insisted the title be put solely in Sarah’s name, with a survivorship clause directly transferring it to Chloe."
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Lucas stepped closer to his mother, pulling the trash bag of Chloe's clothes out of her hands and dropping it onto the floor.
"I don't own this apartment, Mom," Lucas said, looking Evelyn dead in the eye. "Sarah does. I am a tenant here by my wife's grace. Which means you didn't just try to evict my daughter from her room. You committed illegal entry and property destruction in a home where you have absolutely zero legal rights."
