Chapter 2 - The False Foundation
My phone connected on the third ring.
“Marcus? It’s Jessi,” I said, keeping my voice terrifyingly steady.
Marcus Vance was the senior partner at Vance & Sterling Law Firm downtown, as well as the estate attorney who had helped me draft the original property purchase agreement six years ago.
“Jessi? Good grief, I thought you were still stationed in Singapore,” Marcus’s gruff voice came through the speaker. “Is everything alright? You sound... tense.”
“I’m standing in the driveway of my mother’s house in Oakridge,” I replied, my eyes fixed on the second-story bedroom window where Wendy’s silhouette had just appeared behind the blinds. “And I need you to pull up every single file, deed, transfer, and power-of-attorney document associated with this property from the last twenty-four months.”
There was a brief pause on the line as Marcus shifted papers in his office.
“Twenty-four months? Jessi, you bought that house outright under your sole proprietorship LLC. Unless you signed something transferring ownership—”
“I didn't sign anything,” I interrupted, the cold truth settling heavily in my stomach. “Which means someone else did.”
Marcus went dead silent. “Good God. You think there’s a forged transfer?”
“I know there is,” I said, walking back toward my rental car. “Meet me at my office in one hour. Bring a portable scanner, forensic document comparison software, and a copy of the original title. We are going to find out how my brother moved into my house and turned my mother into a prisoner.”
“I’ll have everything ready,” Marcus said grimly. “Do not confront them yet, Jessi. If they suspect you’re onto them, they could liquidate accounts or transfer titles before we secure an injunction.”
“They won't suspect a thing,” I promised. “I played the dutiful, surprised sister who just wanted to visit. They think I believe their little domestic fairy tale.”
I climbed into the rental car, but instead of driving straight downtown, I circled the block and parked near the corner park where I could still keep an eye on the front gates of the estate.
As I sat there waiting, my mind raced back to the moment inside the foyer.
My mother’s hands. The bruises along her wrists weren't from a fall. They looked like restraint marks—tightly gripped fingers holding someone down.
And the uniform. Why would Luca and Wendy make her wear a maid’s outfit in her own home? It wasn't just about chores. It was about psychological dismantling. It was about stripping away her dignity piece by piece until she truly believed she was nothing more than a servant living on their charity.
Pure, unadulterated malice.
When I left for Singapore six years ago, Luca was a chronic gambler who couldn't hold down a job for more than three weeks. My father had constantly bailed him out until the day he died of a massive heart attack—an event hastened by the stress of Luca’s mounting debts. Before I left, I had given Luca a check for twenty thousand dollars with one explicit instruction: Get your life together, and leave Mom alone.
Instead, he had waited for me to leave the country, circled back like a vulture, and preyed on an aging widow.
At 11:30 AM, I arrived at my private corporate office suite downtown. It was a space I maintained for my remote consulting business—a secure, high-tech sanctuary where my assistants handled international logistics.
Marcus was already waiting inside conference room B, a stack of heavy manila folders spread across the polished mahogany table.
“Let’s see what we’re dealing with,” I said, tossing my keys onto the table and sitting down opposite him.
Marcus slid a certified copy of the county property registry across the table.
“I pulled this from the public records office online fifteen minutes ago,” Marcus said, adjusting his glasses. “Jessi... look at section four.”
I scanned the text down to the notarized signature block.
Quitclaim Deed Transfer. Grantor: Jessica Vance. Grantee: Luca Vance.
There, stamped in official blue ink, was my signature.
Except it wasn't mine.
Even to an untrained eye, the flourish on the capital J was entirely wrong. My real signature ended with a sharp, upward stroke; this forgery ended in a heavy, trailing loop.
“A complete fabrication,” Marcus murmured, shaking his head. “And look at the notary stamp. It’s from a small shipping and mailing store out in Cicero. The notary public listed is a woman named Brenda Higgins. I ran her license status—she lost her notary commission three years ago after a conviction for mail fraud.”
“So they used a fake notary stamp, forged my signature on a quitclaim deed while I was thousands of miles away, and filed it electronically with the county clerk,” I said, feeling a strange kind of cold clarity washing over me.
“Exactly,” Marcus nodded. “Which means legally, right now, the house belongs to Luca on paper. But because the transfer was executed via interstate wire and mail fraud, this crosses over from a civil property dispute into federal felony territory.”
“Federal,” I repeated, a dark smile touching the corners of my lips. “Good. Because local police departments move slow, but federal investigators take mail and wire fraud very seriously.”
“Wait, there’s more,” Marcus said, pulling another document from the folder—a bank statement from the primary account where I deposited my mother’s monthly living allowance. “Your mother’s personal checking account—the one you funded with ten thousand dollars every month—has been systematically drained over the last fourteen months.”
My chest tightened. “Drained? By whom?”
“Every thirty days, exactly twelve hours after your wire transfer clears, an automated debit pulls nine thousand five hundred dollars out into an LLC called L&W Holdings,” Marcus pointed to the corporate registry printout. “Registered officers: Luca Vance and Wendy Vance. They’ve been pocketing almost all of her monthly allowance, leaving her with fifty bucks a month for groceries.”
Fifty dollars a month. While they lived in a million-dollar house rent-free, drinking mimosas and forcing my mother to scrub wine off marble floors.
“They didn't just steal the house,” I whispered, the rage inside me crystallizing into a weapon. “They turned her into an indentured servant so they could rob her blind.”
“What’s your next move, Jessi?” Marcus asked, looking at me with a mixture of professional respect and caution. “We can file an emergency injunction, freeze their assets, and have sheriff’s deputies evict them by tomorrow morning.”
“No,” I said, standing up and buttoning my blazer. “Eviction is too easy. It lets them walk away with whatever cash they’ve already hidden in offshore or secondary accounts.”
May you like
“Then what do you want to do?”
“I want to catch them with their hands so deep in the cookie jar that not even a high-priced defense attorney can pull them out,” I replied coldly. “And to do that... I need to go back inside the house.”
