Chapter 4 - The Legal Net Tightens
The color that had started returning to Denise’s cheeks vanished completely, leaving her skin looking like damp, grey parchment. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out except a pathetic, breathy rasp.
"You... you wouldn't," she managed to squeeze out after several agonizing seconds. "You wouldn't sue your own flesh and blood. David, control your son! This will destroy the family! Do you have any idea what kind of public scandal this will cause in our town?"
"You didn't seem too worried about public family scandals when you held a microphone at the reunion pavilion and announced my personal debts to fifty people," I reminded her, resting my chin on my palm. "You seemed to enjoy an audience back then. You loved having a captive crowd while you tore someone apart. I figured you'd appreciate the same transparency when it came to your own financial achievements."
"David!" Denise cried out, reaching frantically across the table to grab my father's sleeve. "Tell him to drop this! It was a mistake! We can settle this privately! We don't need lawyers involved! We're brother and sister!"
My father slowly pulled his arm back, peeling her fingers off his cuff as if removing a burr from his jacket. He didn't look angry anymore; he just looked profoundly tired. "You had six years to settle this privately, Denise. You had six years to come clean. Instead, you spent those six years making my son feel like he was worthless, just so nobody would look too closely at where your new Mercedes came from."
"I was helping him grow up!" she shrieked, her voice turning shrill and hysterical. "I was motivating him! He was a lazy, twenty-something drifter living off his parents! Somebody had to tell him the truth!"
"The truth?" I interrupted, cutting her off with a sharp laugh. "The truth is that while I was working seventy-hour weeks at two different entry-level logistics jobs to repay my father every penny, you were using my mother’s dead mother’s money to pay for weekend trips to Cabo. You didn't want to motivate me, Denise. You needed me to stay at the bottom. Because as long as I was the designated family loser, you could stand on my neck and look tall."
Uncle Arthur stood up, taking off his glasses and tucking them carefully into his front shirt pocket. He walked over to the telephone mounted on the kitchen wall, picked up the receiver, and dialed a number he clearly knew by heart.
"Who are you calling?" Denise demanded, her panic spiking into full-blown terror. "Arthur! Who are you calling right now?!"
"I'm calling Greg," Arthur said, his voice deadly calm as he waited for the line to ring. "I'm telling your husband to contact his attorney immediately. Because tomorrow morning, David and I are joining Lucas's petition as co-plaintiffs. We're requesting an immediate freeze on all bank accounts associated with Vance Holdings LLC, and we're filing a notice of lis pendens on the lake house to prevent you from taking out any more equity loans."
"No! Arthur, you can't do that!" Denise scrambled out of her chair, stumbling against the edge of the sideboard and knocking over a small decorative plate. "We have a contractor starting renovations on the dock next week! We already put down a thirty-thousand-dollar deposit! If you freeze our accounts, the bank will recall our business bridge loan!"
"Then I suggest you sell the Mercedes," my father said, standing beside Arthur with his arms crossed over his chest.
Denise looked wildly around the room, searching for a single sympathetic face. She looked at my mother, who turned her head away in quiet disgust. She looked at Rebecca, who met her gaze with cold, unforgiving defiance. Finally, she looked back at me. The smug, untouchable matriarch of the family had been reduced to a cornered, shaking shell, her expensive blowout disheveled and her breathing ragged.
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"You ruined this family," Denise hissed at me, tears of pure rage finally leaking down her cheeks, streaking her heavy makeup. "You think you're so smart, Lucas? You think you've won? You're still nothing. You'll always be the pathetic little boy who couldn't make it on his own!"
"Maybe," I replied calmly, standing up from my chair and buttoning my suit jacket. "But tomorrow morning, I'm the pathetic little boy who's taking away your keys to Grandma’s house."
