Chapter 5 - The Desperate Plea
The pounding on the heavy oak front door was relentless, accompanied by the muffled sound of Brenda’s voice screaming my name through the keyhole.
"Chloe! I know you're in there! Open this door right now, you ungrateful little witch!"
I didn't rush. I walked slowly through the parlor, adjusted the cuff of my sweater, and unlocked the heavy brass deadbolt. I pulled the door open just enough to reveal Brenda standing on the porch, her hair completely undone, mascara streaking down her cheeks, looking like a woman who had just watched her entire empire turn to ash.
Behind her, Trent was pacing frantically beside the BMW, his phone pressed hard against his ear, muttering curses into the void.
"Brenda," I said evenly, keeping my hand on the edge of the door. "You’re trespassing on historical conservation property. You have forty minutes left on your forty-eight-hour notice."
Brenda grabbed the edge of the door, her fingers white-knuckled and trembling. All the arrogant, icy poise she had worn in the lawyer’s conference room was entirely gone, replaced by raw, frantic desperation.
"Chloe, please," she choked out, her voice cracking into a ragged sob. "You don't understand what you've done. Those developers... they aren't normal businessmen. They’re investors. They gave me half a million in earnest money to secure the permits six months ago. I... I already used the funds to pay off Trent’s debts and my line of credit. If I don't return the money by Monday morning, they’re going to sue me for fraud. They’ll take the cars, they’ll take the condo in the city, they’ll put me in federal prison!"
I looked at her—my aunt, who four days ago had casually shoved a tiny, grieving kitten into a taped-up cardboard box and left him to die in a freezing rainstorm without so much as a second thought.
"That sounds like a personal problem, Aunt Brenda," I said quietly.
"You can fix this!" she shrieked, lunging forward as if she might try to force her way past me. "You control the estate trust! There are millions in liquid reserve accounts! You can write a cashier's check to Sterling Development by five o'clock today, and this whole nightmare goes away! We’re family, Chloe! We share blood!"
"Family?" I echoed, the word tasting like ash on my tongue. "Is that what you called Macaroni when you threw him out into the freezing storm? Did you think about 'family' when you left him to drown by the shelter's storm drain?"
Brenda’s face went completely slack. For a split second, her eyes flicked downward in sudden, guilty panic. "I... I don't know what you're talking about... that stupid rat—"
"He's inside right now," I interrupted, my voice dropping into a register cold enough to freeze boiling water. "Sitting in a sunbeam, purring. Exactly where Grandma left him."
I gripped the edge of the heavy oak door, preparing to push it shut in her face.
"And as for your financial ruin?" I continued, looking her dead in the eye. "I hope they take everything, Brenda. Every last designer suit, every car, every square inch of the life you built on cruelty."
"You little monster!" Brenda screamed, losing her last shred of composure. She threw her hands forward, shoving hard against the heavy door.
May you like
I didn't flinch. But before the door could slam shut, a sudden, sharp screech of tires echoed from the bottom of the long gravel driveway.
Two unmarked black sedans came tearing up the drive at breakneck speed, gravel flying in every direction, before slamming to a halt right in front of Brenda’s Mercedes. The doors flew open simultaneously. Four men in dark suits and heavy overcoats stepped out, walking with a cold, terrifying purpose straight toward the porch—and straight toward my aunt.
