Chapter 6 - The Enforcers Arrive
True to his word, our family attorney, Marcus Reed, didn't waste any time playing games.
By Monday morning—less than thirty-six hours after the manila envelope was taped to my parents’ front door—a formal process server accompanied by two local county sheriff’s deputies rolled up to 442 Elmwood Drive to execute the lockout order and inventory the property assets.
David and I watched from our living room window as Marcus’s sleek black sedan pulled up behind a massive moving truck that my father had desperately managed to hire on short notice.
Through my binoculars, I watched the absolute chaos unfolding across the street.
My father looked ten years older than he had on Christmas Eve, his gray hair uncombed, wearing a heavy winter coat over his pajamas, frantically arguing with one of the deputies while waving a crumpled legal document in the air. Vanessa was standing near the porch steps, screaming into her cell phone—likely calling every real estate attorney in the tri-state area trying to find a loophole that didn't exist.
“Do you think they’ll actually try to fight it in court?” David asked, walking up behind me and resting his hands on my shoulders.
“They can try,” I replied, handing him the binoculars. “But Marcus structured the trust specifically so that any legal challenge automatically forfeits their right to the secondary family trust fund as well. If they sue us, they walk away with nothing except whatever clothes fit in Vanessa’s SUV.”
David whistled softly, looking through the lenses. “Remind me never to get on your bad side, Dr. Vance. You’re terrifying when you’re motivated.”
“I’m a mother,” I corrected him simply. “And nobody starves my kid of food, warmth, and basic human dignity while twenty-eight freeloaders eat prime rib on my dime.”
Just then, my phone—which I had unmuted specifically for business communications—buzzed with an incoming call from Marcus Reed himself.
I swiped to answer. “Marcus? How’s the moving process going over there?”
“It’s going swimmingly, Elena,” Marcus chuckled on the other end of the line, the sound of shouting and slamming doors faintly audible in the background. “Your father tried to claim he had squatters’ rights. The deputy politely informed him that squatting on property owned by an active ER physician and a veteran firefighter is generally a bad career move.”
“Did they clear out the master bedroom?”
“Every last knick-knack,” Marcus confirmed. “Though your sister is currently throwing a monumental tantrum because she claims her childhood trophies are classified as historical artifacts that belong to the family collective.”
May you like
“Tell her she can store her trophies in her own garage,” I said coldly. “The house needs to be completely vacant by midnight tomorrow. If there’s so much as a stray toothpick left behind, have the movers toss it in the curb dumpster.”
“Consider it done,” Marcus said. “I’ll send over the final inspection keys by tomorrow afternoon.”
