Chapter 3 - The Secret Deed
The tension on the phone line was thick enough to cut with a knife. On the other end, Richard let out a heavy, shuddering sigh that sounded like a man who knew his entire world was about to collapse.
“The documents concerning the house, son,” Richard muttered, his voice riddled with anxiety. “She was looking for her passport in your old childhood filing cabinet in the study, and she stumbled across the original closing documents from five years ago. She... she read the names on the title, Ethan.”
Beside me, Ethan didn't look surprised in the least. He leaned back against the cushions of the couch, crossing his arms over his chest with an air of absolute authority.
“What closing documents?” I blurted out, my confusion reaching a boiling point. “Ethan, what are you not telling me?”
Before Ethan could answer, the background noise on the phone call suddenly exploded. The muffled sound of shouting echoed through the speaker, followed by a violent scuffle.
“Give me that damn phone, Richard!” Patricia’s shrill, panicked voice shrieked through the speaker, completely drowning out her husband.
Only seconds later, the line cleared up, and Patricia was shouting directly at Ethan, her voice cracking with a mixture of sheer fury and rising terror.
“Ethan! You listen to me right now, and you listen good! You cannot do this! This is my home! How dare you pull this stunt on Christmas night!”
The profound calm on Ethan’s face did not waver by a single micro-expression. He held the phone a few inches away from his mouth, speaking with a terrifying, chilling clarity.
“No, Mom,” Ethan said softly.
Patricia went abruptly quiet on the other end, stunned by his tone. “What? What do you mean no?”
“You told my wife to take my daughter and get out of your house tonight,” Ethan replied, his voice dropping an octave.
“Well, it IS my house!” Patricia screamed, her voice pitching up hysterically. “I lived here for thirty years! These are my walls, my furniture, my life!”
“No,” Ethan repeated. Just one word. Flat, absolute, and final.
The frantic confidence in Patricia’s voice utterly evaporated, replaced by a sudden, chilling drop in tone.
“What... what are you talking about, Ethan? Stop playing games with me right now.”
Ethan turned his dark, intense eyes toward me, reaching out to gently squeeze my hand. At last, he prepared to disclose the final, earth-shattering secret he had kept hidden from both his mother and me for half a decade.
“Six years ago,” Ethan began, his voice steady and clinical, “when Dad’s business went under and you guys lost millions, the bank didn't just threaten foreclosure, Mom. They scheduled the final public auction for the house within forty-eight hours. You called me crying, begging me to save you from being thrown out onto the street.”
I sat there, listening in absolute shock as the puzzle pieces finally began to snap together.
“You told me you got a loan,” I whispered, looking at my husband.
“I didn't get a loan,” Ethan corrected me gently. “I liquidated my personal tech stock portfolio. I paid off the bank in full, every single cent of their massive debt. But I didn't pay it off in their name.”
On the other end of the phone, Patricia let out a sharp, choked gasp, as if she had just been punched in the stomach.
“The deed is exclusively in my name, Mom,” Ethan said, his voice ringing out clearly through the speaker. “I am the sole legal owner of that property. I let you live there rent-free, and I funded your lavish lifestyle for six years because you were my family. But tonight, you crossed a line you can never uncross. You put your hands on my wife. You insulted my innocent daughter.”
Dead, suffocating silence filled the other end of the line. You could have heard a pin drop across the miles separating us.
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“Ethan... please,” Richard’s voice finally chimed back in, trembling pathetically. “We had no idea the deed was transferred. Your mother was just angry, she didn't mean it, she was under a lot of stress—please, son, have mercy—”
“I don’t care what she meant,” Ethan interrupted, his voice cutting through his father’s pleading like a razor-sharp blade. “You told Claire to get out of your house, Mom. So now, I'm telling you to get out of mine.”
