The betrayal wasn’t from my parents or my sister—I expected their cruelty. I knew exactly who they were. The betrayal that was physically crushing my chest was from Arthur. Why had he done this? Why had he subjected me to this final, ultimate humiliation? Had the dementia truly twisted his mind at the end? Had he actually hated me?
“Get your things out of my house by tonight, Maya,” Richard commanded, standing up and aggressively buttoning his bespoke suit jacket. The ‘my’ was heavily emphasized. “The estate is legally ours now. The cleaners are coming tomorrow morning at eight to fumigate that disgusting hospital smell out of the master suite and the guest wing.”
“Dad, I have nowhere to go,” I whispered, my voice finally cracking. “I gave up my apartment three years ago to move in with Grandpa. I don’t have a job. I don’t have savings.”
Helen scoffed, picking up her designer purse. “That sounds like a personal problem, Maya. You should have thought about your future instead of trying to con a dying man out of his fortune. You have until 8:00 PM. If you are still on the property, I will call the police and have you removed for trespassing.”
They didn’t look back. The three of them marched out of the conference room, leaving me sitting alone with Mr. Sterling and the single one-dollar bill.
I drove back to the sprawling estate in a complete, terrifying daze. I didn’t even have the mental capacity to process my grief for Arthur. Survival had instantly taken precedence.
But by the time my beat-up sedan pulled into the long, winding driveway of the property, the sheer, sociopathic cruelty of my family had already escalated.
Helen and Richard hadn’t waited for 8:00 PM.
They had already hired two day-laborers, who were currently hauling my meager belongings out of the guest house. They weren’t packing my things; they were treating me like a squatter who had just been forcefully evicted. They were tossing my favorite books, my clothes, and my framed photos into heavy-duty, black industrial trash bags and aggressively dumping them directly onto the wet curb near the street.
“I said tonight, Maya, but I changed my mind!” Helen shouted from the grand front porch, sipping a glass of champagne, watching me scramble out of my car in a panic to save my laptop bag from being thrown onto the pavement. “I want the locks changed before dinner! You’re trespassing on my property! Get your garbage and get out!”
