Chapter 4 - The Fragile Golden Child
Joseline didn't look at the paper. She didn't need to. Her eyes darted to Arthur, frantic, wild, the smooth veneer of the high-society bride cracking down the center.
“Daddy,” she demanded, her voice shrill, shedding every trace of her southern-belle cadence. “What is he talking about? You said the title was clear! Bradley’s father is signing the underwriting papers on Friday! If the equity isn't cleared, the loan falls through! We lose the lot on North Ridge!”
Arthur was staring at the table, his jaw clenched so hard a small vein was throbbing violently against his temple. “The document is invalid. Croft, this is a sham. Walter was half-senile when he drafted that nonsense. Richard was dying of lung cancer, pumped full of morphine. He didn't know what he was signing. I was the executor of the estate!”
“You were the *putative* executor under an outdated 2004 instrument that you filed fraudulently with the probate clerk,” Croft said calmly, pulling a second sheet from the folder. “And as for the Colonel’s mental state, we have a forty-minute video examination conducted by three board-certified neurologists from Johns Hopkins University. Would you like me to play it on the wall monitor, Arthur? In the video, your father-in-law spends ten minutes describing your specific military service record, three minutes detailing your personal financial insolvency, and twelve minutes explaining that if he left you five cents, you would spend it trying to buy Joseline a crown she didn't earn.”
Eleanor let out a sharp, choked sob and buried her face in her hands.
“Shut up, Eleanor!” Arthur roared, slamming his fist onto the mahogany.
The sound was loud, but it didn't carry the terrifying power it had possessed when I was eight, or twelve, or eighteen. It sounded hollow. Like a child banging a wooden spoon against an empty pot.
I stepped closer to the table, leaning forward until I was looking directly into Joseline’s widening, mascara-rimmed eyes.
“Bradley Sterling,” I said softly. “He’s the third vice-president of Sterling Capital, isn't he? He drives a dark blue Porsche, plays squash at the athletic club on Thursdays, and his family hasn't had a single financial scandal in four generations.”
“Don't you dare speak his name,” Joseline spat, her breath smelling of peppermint and panic. “You’re nothing. You’re a filthy little clerk! You were sleeping in a garbage heap behind a Walmart! You think because you put on a blazer you’re my equal? Bradley wouldn't even look at you!”
“Bradley doesn't need to look at me,” I whispered, my voice smooth as silk. “Bradley is going to look at the title search. Because at nine o’clock this morning, before you walked through those doors, Miller, Croft & Associates filed an emergency *lis pendens* against 414 Elmridge Road with the county recorder.”
Joseline blinked, confused. She didn't understand the Latin. She didn't understand property law. To her, money was something that appeared in an account when she batted her eyelashes at Arthur.
“What does that mean?” she hissed, looking back at Arthur. “Daddy, what does that mean?”
Arthur didn't answer. He knew what it meant. His shoulders slumped by two visible inches.
“It means the property is legally contested,” I told her. “It means the title is frozen. It means no bank, no underwriter, and no title insurance company in the United States will allow Bradley Sterling to use that house as collateral for a single dime. And if you attempt to transfer the deed, Arthur will be arrested for grand larceny and fraudulent conveyance before the ink is dry.”
Joseline’s face went entirely white.
“You’re ruining my life,” she whispered. The tears were real now, streaming down her perfectly contoured cheeks, ruining the six-hundred-dollar makeup application. “You’re doing this on purpose. You’re jealous. You’ve always been jealous of me! Because Daddy loved me more! Because I was the pretty one! You want to destroy my marriage because nobody will ever love a bitter, disgusting freak like you!”
I didn't blink. I didn't feel a single surge of anger.
Looking at Joseline in that moment was like looking through a microscope at a fragile, single-celled organism that had suddenly been removed from its warm petri dish and dropped onto a slide of liquid nitrogen. She had no armor. She had no skills. She had spent twenty-six years learning how to be adorned, how to be praised, and how to weaponize Arthur’s pathetic vanity to crush anyone who questioned her supremacy.
She was completely, utterly helpless.
“You’re right about one thing, Joseline,” I said, standing upright and smoothing the lapels of my jacket. “I am doing this on purpose. But I’m not doing it because I’m jealous. You don't envy a tapeworm because it gets fed first.”
“Nicole!” Eleanor wailed, reaching out a trembling hand toward my sleeve. “Please! We’re your family! Your father was only trying to teach you discipline! He wanted you to be strong!”
I pulled my arm back, letting her fingers grasp empty air.
“Discipline?” I asked, looking down at my mother with a cold, clinical curiosity. “Is that what you called it when you watched him lock the deadbolt? Did you think about my strength at two in the morning, Eleanor, when the temperature inside my car dropped to twenty-six degrees? Did you wonder if my heart was still beating while you were picking out curtains for Joseline’s dressing room?”
Eleanor flinched as if I had struck her across the mouth.
“You have thirty days,” I said, addressing Arthur directly. “The notice to vacate will be served by the sheriff’s department this afternoon. You will surrender the keys to 414 Elmridge Road by five o’clock on November fifteenth. If you remove a single fixture, if you damage so much as a square inch of drywall, or if Joseline takes so much as one piece of the antique silver that belonged to my grandmother Vance, I will execute the civil damages clause. And Arthur? Your Marine pension can be garnished for willful destruction of trust property. I checked the statutory code twice.”
Arthur looked up at me. His eyes were bloodshot, the terrible, impotent rage of an old tyrant stripped of his empire burning in his retinas.
“You won't do it,” he growled, though the threat lacked teeth. “You’re my daughter. You don't have the stomach for it.”
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“You threw me into the winter, Arthur,” I said, turning my back on him and walking toward the door. “You should have checked to make sure I froze before you let me learn how to hunt in the snow.”
***