Chapter 6 - The Bel Air Eviction
By ten o'clock the following morning, the sun was shining brightly over the manicured hedges of the Bel Air estate, but the atmosphere inside the mansion felt like a tomb.
I stood in the center of the grand foyer, holding a cup of hot chamomile tea, while two teams of professional movers—hired directly by my father’s legal division—went methodically through the house, boxing up every luxury item, designer garment, and imported artifact that Spencer and his mother claimed as their own.
Patricia Albright sat rigidly on an antique velvet settee in the parlor, her face purple with rage, clutching a leather handbag as if it were a life raft in the middle of an ocean.
“This is illegal!” Patricia shrieked, pointing a trembling, diamond-ringed finger at the movers carrying out a set of crystal vases. “You can't do this! This house belongs to the Albright family trust! We have rights!”
I walked into the parlor, my heels clicking sharply against the hardwood floor. I was wearing a simple cream-colored cashmere sweater and tailored trousers—practical, comfortable, and entirely unbothered.
“Actually, Patricia, you don't,” I said calmly, pulling a folded legal document from my pocket and tossing it onto the coffee table in front of her. “The mortgage on this property was defaulted six months ago. My father’s holding company quietly bought up the underlying debt three weeks after Spencer used our emergency savings to buy Cassandra that sports car.”
Patricia grabbed the paper, her eyes scanning the legal seals and signatures. Her breath hitched.
“You… you bought the mortgage?” she whispered in absolute horror.
“Every single square inch of this house, down to the doorknobs and the marble tiles Cassandra bled my daughter’s teeth onto, belongs to the Crawford estate,” I said, my voice dropping into a cold, level tone. “Which means you have precisely twenty minutes to pack your personal belongings into that Mercedes outside before the locks are changed and the demolition crews arrive.”
“Demolition?” Patricia gasped, staggering to her feet. “You can’t demolish this house! It’s historical! It’s an architectural landmark!”
“It’s a monument to cruelty,” I replied simply. “And I prefer an empty lot.”
Just then, the front door swung open, and Hazel walked in, holding my father’s hand. She was wearing a bright yellow sundress, her hair tied up in twin ribbons, and her smile—though missing two front teeth—was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
She looked around the foyer, her eyes wide, taking in the empty spaces where expensive paintings used to hang.
“Mommy?” Hazel asked, looking up at me. “Are we moving?”
I knelt down, pulling her into a warm embrace, pressing a kiss against the top of her head.
“We’re going home, sweetie,” I whispered. “A real home. Where nobody will ever yell, and nobody will ever hurt you again.”
Hazel nodded happily, her small hand reaching into her pocket to pull out a brand-new box of crayons. “Can I draw on the walls there?”
I laughed—a real, bright laugh that chased away the last lingering shadows of the past six years.
“You can paint the whole damn living room if you want to, baby.”
Patricia stumbled past us toward the front door, muttering curses under her breath, her face flushed with the bitter humiliation of a tyrant who had finally run out of subjects to oppress. As she crossed the threshold, she cast one last venomous glare in my direction.
“You won't get away with this,” she hissed. “Spencer will get out. He’ll find a way!”
“Spencer is currently sitting in a federal holding cell trying to explain to an FBI investigator why his Cayman accounts match his wire fraud indictments,” I replied without blinking. “If he ever gets out, he’ll be spending the next twenty years paying off federal restitution working minimum wage at a car wash.”
Patricia slammed the heavy wooden door behind her.
May you like
The lock clicked into place.
I stood up, took my father’s hand in one hand and my daughter’s hand in the other, and walked out the front doors of the Bel Air mansion for the very last time.
