Chapter 8 - The Price of Free Loading
The winter months brought the final, crushing blows to the Hawthorne men.
In January, the Travis County District Court held the preliminary hearing for Richard Hawthorne’s identity theft and forgery charges. Because the evidence I provided was ironclad—complete with digital audit trails and video footage from the bank's security cameras showing my father submitting the forged document—his defense attorney didn't even attempt a trial.
My father accepted a plea deal. He was sentenced to two years in a minimum-security state correctional facility, ordered to pay $150,000 in immediate restitution, and his architectural license was permanently revoked by the state board.
Ryan didn't fare much better. Without my corporate account to fund his "consultancy," his business officially filed for bankruptcy. He was forced to take a job working the night shift at a local distribution warehouse, earning fifteen dollars an hour, moving heavy boxes in the freezing cold—the kind of manual labor he had spent his entire life mocking.
One evening, as I was leaving the corporate office of Vance & Hawthorne Development, I saw a figure standing beside my car in the parking lot.
It was Ryan. He was wearing a worn-out jacket, his hands stuffed into his pockets, shivering in the January wind. He looked ten years older.
"Claire," he said, his voice completely stripped of the smug arrogance he used to wear like armor. "Please. Don't run away. I just need to talk to you for two minutes."
I stopped a few feet away, keeping my hand near my purse where my security key fob was. "What do you want, Ryan?"
"I want to say I’m sorry," he whispered, a tear freezing on his cheek. "I was an idiot. I let Dad convince me that you would always be there to clean up my messes no matter how I treated you. I thought... I thought because you were my sister, your love was unconditional. I didn't realize how much I was hurting you."
I looked at him, searching his face for any sign of the brother I used to protect. I saw regret, yes. But mostly, I saw a man who was tired of being poor.
"My love was unconditional, Ryan," I said softly. "But my respect isn't. And my bank account certainly isn't. You didn't just exclude me from your wedding; you tried to erase my existence after I gave you everything. You wanted my money, but you were embarrassed by my presence because I knew the truth about you."
"Can we just... can we just have a relationship again?" he begged. "No money. I don't want a dime. I just want my sister back."
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"Maybe in a few years, Ryan," I said, unlocking my car. "When you’ve paid off your own debts, when you’ve worked a real job for longer than a year, and when you can look at me without thinking about how much I can do for you. Until then, don't come to my office again."
I got into my car, closed the door, and drove away, leaving him alone in the dark parking lot.
