Chapter 6 - The Silver Creek Trap
On Monday morning at eight o’clock sharp, I walked into the law offices of Vance & Sterling on the twenty-second floor of the city center tower.
Marcus Vance greeted me in the conference room with two large coffees and a heavy legal binder.
“Tyler spent the weekend in central processing,” Marcus said, sliding a folder across the mahogany table. “Dad couldn’t make bail. The judge set it at seven thousand five hundred because of Tyler’s prior disorderly conduct charges and the explicit threat he made against you in front of the arresting officers.”
“Did Dad try to get a bail bondsman?”
“He tried,” Marcus smiled thinly. “The bondsman required a ten-percent non-refundable deposit and collateral. Dad offered the house. But when the bondsman ran the title search to verify Dad’s equity, he hit a brick wall.”
I took a slow sip of the dark roast. “Silver Creek Holdings.”
“Precisely,” Marcus said. “The deed is legally clouded. Dad took out that three-hundred-thousand-dollar mezzanine note from Apex Capital twenty months ago. When Apex packaged and sold delinquent private notes last fall, your shell LLC acquired it for sixty cents on the dollar. Dad hasn’t made a principal payment in five months. He’s technically ninety days past the final cure notice.”
“Which means?”
“Which means you are not just his creditor, Nora. You hold the primary mortgage lien on the property. And under the default acceleration clause Dad signed with Apex, the entire remaining balance of three hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars—including accrued interest and late penalties—is due in full.”
“Can he refinance?”
Marcus chuckled. “With a credit score under five hundred and eighty, zero verifiable income since his contracting business went belly-up, and an active domestic violence police file registered at that specific address? No legitimate bank on earth will touch him. A loan shark wouldn't even lend him a nickel.”
“What about the criminal case against Tyler?”
“The county prosecutor watched the driveway footage,” Marcus said, his tone turning sharp. “They aren’t offering a misdemeanor diversion. The prosecutor’s office is pushing for felony criminal mischief and witness intimidation. If convicted, Tyler faces eighteen to thirty-six months in the state correctional facility.”
I looked out the panoramic window overlooking the city skyline. Below, yellow cabs crawled through the morning rush hour. People were going to work, building lives, earning their keep through sweat and sacrifice.
For decades, my parents had treated life like an open bar where I was the perpetual designated driver forced to pay the tab. They believed blood was an unbreakable contract of servitude.
“Serve the notice, Marcus,” I said softly.
“Which one?”
May you like
“Both,” I replied. “Serve Dad with the formal thirty-day demand for mortgage acceleration and foreclosure intent. And notify the district attorney that I will not, under any circumstances, agree to drop the criminal charges against Tyler.”
***
