Chapter 5 - The Desperate Beggars
Two days later, as Leo and I were reviewing architectural blueprints for a commercial garage space in Torrance, a heavy, frantic pounding shook the front door of my small apartment.
I opened the door, standing tall on my crutches.
My parents and Chloe stood in the hallway.
They looked like ghosts of the people who had popped champagne three days ago. My mother was wearing a plain track suit, her hair unstyled, her eyes swollen from crying. My father’s suit was wrinkled, his tie loosened, and Chloe was staring at me with a mixture of burning hatred and desperate terror.
"Vivienne!" my mother cried out, reaching forward to grab my arm.
I pulled back sharply, setting my crutch between us like a barrier. "Don't touch me."
"Vivienne, please!" my father begged, his voice raspy and broken. "You have to call your lawyer! You have to tell the court it was a mistake! The banks have frozen everything! We can't pay the mortgage on the house! Sterling Logistics is facing an emergency receivership! The board is threatening to remove me as CEO!"
"You took Leo's trust fund, Dad," I said, my voice cold as concrete. "You stole two hundred thousand dollars from your twenty-year-old son."
"It was an investment!" Chloe shouted, stepping up beside my mother, her hands shaking. "Dad was going to pay it back! You ruined my life, Vivienne! Everyone at the country club is talking about me! My friends blocked my number! They took my boat!"
"It wasn't your boat, Chloe," I snapped, looking at her with undisguised disgust. "It was paid for with the money Grandpa left Leo to build his life. While you were taking pictures on the deck, I was sitting in a military clinic begging for five thousand dollars so I wouldn't spend the rest of my life disabled."
"We didn't know it was that serious!" my mother wept, wringing her hands. "You said you needed surgery, but you're always so tough, Vivienne! We thought you were exaggerating!"
"I served two tours in a combat zone, Mom," I said, leaning closer to her face. "I don't exaggerate pain. You just didn't care."
My father fell to his knees in the public hallway, grabbing the hem of my jeans.
"Vivienne... I'm begging you," the man who had ignored my phone calls wept, his hands shaking against my shoe. "They're going to file criminal fraud charges against me. I could go to federal prison. Please... talk to your lawyer. We're your family!"
Leo stepped out from the kitchen, standing beside me, his shoulders square, his chest high.
"You're not our family," Leo said clearly, looking down at our father on the floor. "Family doesn't starve one child to feed another. Get out of our hallway before we call the building security."
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My father looked up at Leo, realization finally dawning on him: the son he had dismissed as a simple mechanic and the daughter he had abandoned as a broken soldier were no longer targets.
We were the executioners of his empire.
