Chapter 4 - The Betrayal of Blood
Two days later, I was officially discharged from Saint Jude’s Trauma Center.
Lucas personally escorted me back to my apartment in a sleek black FBI SUV. But when we pulled up to the curb of my residential building, two moving vans were parked outside, and my personal belongings—my clothes, my books, my childhood photo albums—were piled in cardboard boxes on the wet sidewalk.
Standing on the sidewalk, holding a clipboard and talking to a landlord, was my sister, Chloe.
She was no longer wearing her twenty-thousand-dollar wedding gown. She wore an expensive tracksuit, dark sunglasses covering her eyes, her face twisted in bitter rage.
When she saw me step out of the SUV alongside Lucas, she stormed over, shoving a finger into my chest.
"You selfish, ruined little bitch!" Chloe screamed, her voice echoing down the street. "You ruined my life! You ruined my wedding day! Julian’s family accounts are frozen because of you!"
I stood my ground, looking at my sister with a mixture of pity and disgust. "Evelyn tried to poison me, Chloe. She ripped my insulin pump off my body and threw it in the trash."
"She was nervous!" Chloe shrieked, waving her arms wildly. "It was a high-stress day! You were making a scene about your stupid sugar problems like you always do! If you had just smiled, taken a sip of wine, and sat down in the corner, none of this would have happened!"
I stared at her, my heart breaking into a thousand sharp pieces. "She put liquid sedatives in my glass, Chloe. I could have died."
"At least Julian’s family would have been safe!" Chloe spat back, her eyes flashing with pure malice. "Julian was going to make me a partner in his real estate firm! We were going to buy the penthouse in Manhattan! Now Julian won't even look at me! His lawyers are filing for an annulment because of the scandal your FBI boyfriend caused!"
Lucas stepped up beside me, his tall frame casting a long shadow over Chloe. "Ms. Miller," Lucas said coldly, "if you do not step away from Elena immediately, I will arrest you for illegal eviction and destruction of personal property."
Chloe scoffed, tearing off her sunglasses. "This is my apartment building, you idiot! The lease was signed under the Blackwood Family Trust! I have every right to throw her stuff on the street!"
"Actually," Lucas pulled a certified legal document from his jacket pocket, "as of eight o'clock this morning, the federal bankruptcy court placed all assets managed by the Blackwood Family Trust under federal receivership. That includes this building. Elena’s lease has been officially transferred under the Federal Witness Protection and Victim Restoration Act."
Chloe’s mouth opened and closed like a landed fish. "What... what does that mean?"
"It means," I said, stepping forward and taking the clipboard out of her trembling hands, "that you are trespassing on federal property. Get off my sidewalk, Chloe. Go back to your empty estate."
Chloe looked from me to Lucas, realizing she had lost all her leverage. Tears of bitter humiliation spilled down her cheeks as she turned on her designer heels, jumped into her sports car, and sped away into the afternoon traffic.
I looked at the pile of boxes on the wet sidewalk, feeling a heavy weight settle onto my shoulders. My fiancé was in jail. My future mother-in-law was a criminal. My sister hated me. My entire family structure had been built on a foundation of lies and cruelty.
May you like
Lucas walked over, picked up two of my heaviest luggage boxes without effort, and looked at me with a soft, reassuring smile.
"Don't worry, Elena," Lucas said gently. "We're going to move your things back inside. And then I'm going to show you what your father really left behind for you."
