Chapter 4 - The Ambush at the Apartment
Three days later, Maya and Liam were officially discharged from the hospital.
I took them directly to a high-end, secure service apartment in Manhattan that I had rented for the next two months. I wasn't going to let Maya return to the Brooklyn home until it was completely disinfected, refurnished, and secured with new locks and private security guards.
After settling Maya and Liam with a full-time, professional night nurse and a private doctor, I went back to the Brooklyn apartment accompanied by two armed private security guards I had hired.
I knew my family would come to the house as soon as their bus arrived from Miami.
Sure enough, at 4:00 p.m., the front door lock jiggled furiously. When it wouldn't open—because I had already changed the heavy-duty deadbolts—someone began pounding aggressively on the oak door.
"David! Open this door right now!" my mother’s voice screamed through the wood. "This is my home too! You can't lock your own mother out!"
"David, open up!" Mark yelled. "We’ve been on a bus for twenty-four hours! We have no money, and our clothes are in there!"
I opened the door slowly, stepping out into the hallway, flanked by two towering security guards in black suits.
Eleanor, Chloe, and Mark looked disheveled, exhausted, and furious. Their designer clothes were crumpled, their eyes bloodshot.
"Where is Maya?" Chloe demanded, trying to push past me. "She needs to tell the police that this was all a misunderstanding before they arrest us! Do you have any idea what we've been through in Florida?!"
"You look tired, Chloe," I said coolly, holding my arm out to block her path. "Imagine how Maya felt after major surgery, sitting on a plastic chair in a freezing apartment while you drank champagne in South Beach."
"David, I am your mother!" Eleanor wept, attempting to summon her usual guilt-tripping drama. She reached out to grab my coat. "How can you treat me like a criminal?! Everything I did was for this family! Maya was incompetent! She was neglecting the baby—"
"Enough!" I roared. My voice echoed down the quiet apartment building hallway so sharply that Eleanor flinched backward.
"I have every second of video footage, Mother," I said, pointing at the small camera mounted near the ceiling. "I watched you take the groceries out of my fridge. I watched you turn off the central heating to save on utilities while my son shivered in a wicker basket. I watched you stand over my wife while she bled through her clothes and laugh about going to Miami."
Mark took a step forward, his fists clenched. "Listen here, David—"
Before Mark could finish his sentence, two NYPD officers rounded the corner of the stairwell, led by Detective Vance.
"Eleanor Vance, Chloe Vance-Miller, and Mark Miller?" Detective Vance asked, pulling out a set of handcuffs.
Eleanor’s face drained of all color. "David... what is this?! Tell them to stop!"
"You are under arrest for grand larceny, reckless endangerment, and fraud," Detective Vance announced calmly.
As the officers stepped forward and snapped the cold steel handcuffs around their wrists, Chloe began to scream hysterically, while Mark tried to plead his case to the guards. Eleanor turned her head back toward me, tears streaming down her face, her voice high and desperate.
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"David! I'm your mother! You can't do this to your own mother!"
"You stopped being my mother the night you left my son to freeze," I said quietly, turning my back on them and walking into my apartment, closing the heavy door behind me.
