Chapter 3 - The Eviction Notice
Chloe Carter paced the pristine hardwood floors of the Carter estate guest suite, her cell phone pressed against her ear, chewing her manicured fingernails down to the raw quick.
"What do you mean, 'insufficient funds'?!" she screamed into the receiver. "Try the black Amex again! It has an unlimited line! My brother is Leo Carter, VP of Operations at NexaTech! Do you know who you’re talking to?!"
The voice on the other end was robotic and unapologetic. *"I'm sorry, Miss Carter. The account holder, Mr. Leo Carter, has placed a total administrative freeze on all authorized user cards, citing unauthorized fraudulent activity. Furthermore, your name has been flagged in our national fraud database. Good day."*
The line went dead.
Chloe shrieked in frustration, hurling her diamond-encrusted iPhone onto the king-sized down duvet. "Damn you, Leo! Damn you!"
It had been twenty-four hours since the police had dragged their mother away like a common criminal. Chloe had spent the entire night calling high-priced criminal defense attorneys, only to be told that bail would not even be considered until Monday morning, and that the retainer fee to represent someone facing Class 1 felony assault charges started at fifty thousand dollars. Cash. Up front.
She had expected Leo to come home, hungover with remorse, weeping and apologizing for his dramatic overreaction. She had expected him to beg her forgiveness, hand over a fresh credit card, and scramble to hire the best legal team in the state to get Mom out of that filthy county jail cell.
Instead, the house had been dead silent.
Suddenly, the heavy front door downstairs slammed open.
Chloe gasped, a vindictive smirk instantly returning to her face. "Finally," she muttered, smoothing down her cashmere sweater. "Time to make him pay for this embarrassment."
She strutted out onto the second-floor mezzanine, looking down into the grand foyer, ready to unleash a rehearsed barrage of tears and accusations. "Leo! Where the hell have you been?! Do you have any idea what Mom is going through in that disgusting—"
The words froze in her throat.
Leo wasn't alone.
Flanking him were four burly men in gray industrial jumpsuits carrying heavy-duty moving dollies and commercial packing boxes. Beside them stood two uniformed private security guards and a stern-looking woman holding a clipboard.
"Leo?" Chloe descended the spiral staircase slowly, her confidence crumbling with every step. "What is this? Who are these people?"
Leo looked up at her. He had changed into a dark charcoal sweater and black jeans. His face was entirely devoid of warmth. It was the face he wore when he shut down underperforming international subsidiaries: cold, calculated, and absolute.
"You have forty-five minutes, Chloe," Leo said quietly.
"Forty-five minutes for what?"
"To pack whatever clothes you purchased with your own legal money into two suitcases and vacate this property," Leo stated.
"Excuse me?!" Chloe laughed, a shrill, hysterical sound that echoed off the high chandelier. "Are you out of your mind?! This is my home! Mom and I live here! You can’t just kick me out! We have tenant rights! I know the law!"
The woman with the clipboard stepped forward, pulling a blue-backed document from her folder and extending it toward Chloe. "Miss Chloe Carter, I am a process server licensed by the county. You are hereby served with an emergency ex-parte order of protection issued by Judge Harrison, effective immediately. Under the terms of this order, you are forbidden from being within five hundred yards of Emily Carter, Leo Carter, or this physical address."
Chloe took a step back, refusing to touch the paper. It fell to the polished slate floor between them. "This is insane! Leo, you're kicking your own sister onto the street?! For what?! For a psychotic bitch who couldn't even give you a baby?!"
The air in the room went completely still.
One of the security guards visibly flinched. The movers stopped dead in their tracks, exchanging uneasy glances.
Leo didn't yell. He didn't raise his hand. He simply closed the distance between them until he was standing less than two feet away. When he spoke, his voice was so low and terrifying that Chloe took an involuntary step backward until her spine hit the mahogany banister.
"My wife lost our child because your mother refused to let her call for help," Leo whispered, each syllable trembling with lethal restraint. "My wife was bleeding to death on this very floor while you sat there watching makeup tutorials. You stole her identity. You forged her signature. You took out two hundred and forty thousand dollars in illegal loans to buy your pathetic, hollow lifestyle."
Chloe turned pale as chalk. "I... I don't know what you're talking about—"
"The police have the IP addresses, Chloe," Leo cut her off. "The applications were filed from your laptop, using the Wi-Fi router sitting in that guest bedroom. The forensic detectives have already imaged the hard drive while you were asleep this morning."
Chloe’s knees literally gave out, and she had to clutch the banister to keep from collapsing. "Leo... please. Mom told me to do it! Mom said Emily was a nobody who married into our wealth! She said Emily didn't deserve your money, that it belonged to us! She made me do it!"
"Pack your bags," Leo said, turning his back on her. "If you are not off this property by two o'clock, the officers waiting outside will arrest you for trespassing and felony identity theft on the spot."
"Where am I supposed to go?!" Chloe shrieked, the tears finally bursting forth in ugly, frantic streams. "I don't have any money! My cards are declined! My car is in the driveway—"
"Your car has already been hooked up to a tow truck," Leo said without pausing as he walked toward the kitchen. "The lease was in Emily's name. It has been surrendered to the dealership to mitigate the fraudulent debt you created. Call an Uber, Chloe. If you have any friends left who haven't realized you're a parasite, maybe they'll let you sleep on their couch."
"You're a monster!" Chloe screamed, throwing herself against the banister, her voice echoing through the massive foyer. "You're throwing your family away for that barren little maid! She will never love you like we do! You’ll regret this, Leo! I’m going to tell everyone! I’m going to ruin you!"
"Thirty-eight minutes," Leo called out from the kitchen.
Sobbing hysterically, Chloe scrambled up the stairs to throw whatever designer dresses she could grab into a suitcase.
Ten minutes later, locked in the bathroom of the guest suite, her hands shaking with rage, Chloe opened her phone. She opened TikTok and Facebook, turned the front-facing camera on her tear-streaked face, and pressed record.
"Hey guys..." she sobbed into the lens, adopting the most pathetic, wounded expression she could muster. "I never thought I'd have to make a video like this. But my family is being destroyed. My brother's wife... she’s completely manipulated him. She faked an illness to get my sixty-three-year-old mother thrown into jail, and now she’s made my brother throw me out on the street with nowhere to go. Please... if anyone knows a good lawyer... please help us. Emily Carter is an evil, calculating monster..."
May you like
She hit post. Within seconds, the video began to gather its first few views.
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