“I know, I know,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “But these things take time to process. Probate can take months, and I was just thinking, you know, things have been tight for your uncle and me. The transmission on the van is going, and since you were so close to Walter, maybe you could put in a good word with Derek when he starts cutting the checks.”
She looked at me with hungry eyes. To her, the estate wasn’t a collection of homes where people lived. It was a pie, and she was terrified that Derek was going to eat the whole thing before she got a crumb.
“I do not have any influence over Derek,” I said, stepping back.
“Oh, come on,” she said, her tone sharpening. “You lived in his pocket for four years. Surely he gave you something. Cash, jewelry. Don’t hold out on family, Ivy.”
I walked away. I couldn’t stomach it. I went outside and stood in the parking lot, breathing in the cold air, waiting for the performance to end.
Three days later, the summons came. It wasn’t a request. It was an email from Derek, cc’ing Mom, Aunt Loretta, and Tiffany.
SUBJECT: Estate Strategy Meeting LOCATION: Klein and Marrow Legal Group TIME: Friday, 10:00 AM Please attend to discuss the transition of assets and the future management structure of the Bennett Estate. Attendance is mandatory.
Mandatory. As if he were already my boss.
That night, my phone buzzed with a text message from him. Ivy, Friday is going to be heavy on legal details. I know that stuff bores you. Just sit tight. I have worked out a plan. I am going to set aside a cash sum for you from the operating account so you can take some time off, maybe travel. Don’t make it awkward in front of Klein. Let me handle the heavy lifting.
I stared at the screen. He was trying to bribe me. He thought that if he threw a few thousand at me, I would nod along while he dismantled everything Grandpa built. He thought I was weak. He thought I was just the little sister who took pictures of flowers and didn’t understand how the real world worked. He had no idea that I was currently sitting on the floor of my apartment, surrounded by four years of evidence.
I had organized everything. The receipts for the roof repairs were in a blue folder. The emails from the tenants were printed and chronologically sorted. The bank statements from the Ironwood Holdings account—the account he didn’t know existed—were highlighted. And next to them lay the sealed envelope Grandpa had given me. I hadn’t opened it yet. I wanted to. The temptation to rip it open and see the final instructions was overwhelming, but I honored the command. Wait until he is most confident.
I picked up my phone and saw a message from Howard Klein. It was short, professional, and cryptic. I have received Derek’s agenda for the meeting. He intends to speak for the first hour. Let him. Do not interrupt until he asks for signatures. Let them speak first.
I trusted Howard. He was the only other person who knew where the landmines were buried.
I was about to go to sleep when my phone buzzed again. This time, it wasn’t a text. It was an automated alert from the credit monitoring service I had signed up for on behalf of the estate—another little administrative task Grandpa had asked me to handle years ago to watch for identity theft.
ALERT: CREDIT INQUIRY DETECTED APPLICANT: Derek Bennett COLLATERAL LISTED: 412 Maple Street, 880 Elm Street, 105 Main Commercial INSTITUTION: State Valley Bank
I sat up straight, my heart hammering against my ribs. The timestamp was from two hours ago. Derek wasn’t just planning to take over the properties. He was already spending them. He had applied for a loan, probably a massive business line of credit, using the properties as collateral. He had listed assets he did not own to secure debt for himself. He was gambling with houses that belonged to Ironwood Holdings. He was committing bank fraud. He must have assumed that since he was the presumed heir, the bank would overlook the title issues until probate cleared. Or maybe he had forged a document saying he had power of attorney. Either way, he had crossed a line that you can’t walk back from.
I took a screenshot of the alert. I printed it out. I added it to the folder.
I looked at the text message from him again. Don’t make it awkward. I almost laughed. It was a cold, humorless sound in the empty apartment. He was worried about things being awkward. He should have been worried about things being criminal.
I turned off the light, but I didn’t sleep. I lay in the dark, visualizing the conference room. I pictured Derek standing there, confident, arrogant, thinking he was the smartest person in the room. I pictured my mother nodding, Tiffany smiling, Aunt Loretta calculating her cut. They thought they were walking into a coronation. They didn’t know they were walking into an arraignment. The grief was still there, a dull ache in the center of my chest. I missed Grandpa. I missed his rasping voice and his stories about the war. But the grief was being hardened by something else. It was being calcified by anger. They had ignored him when he was alive. They had reduced his suffering to an inconvenience. And now they were trying to erase his wishes before the dirt on his grave had even settled.
I closed my eyes and whispered into the dark, “I am ready, Grandpa.”
The stage was set, the actors were in place, and I was holding the script that was going to ruin the show. The week leading up to the estate meeting was a masterclass in psychological warfare. My brother did not use guns or fists. He used bandwidth and notifications. He waged a campaign of inevitable victory designed to make me feel like a minor obstacle that was about to be paved over by the steamroller of his ambition.
It started on Monday morning with a notification on my phone. I was drinking black coffee, staring at the rain streaking the window of my small apartment. When Instagram alerted me that Derek had posted a new photo, I clicked on it. It was a picture of him standing in an empty high-rise office space downtown. The floor-to-ceiling windows behind him showed the Holocrest skyline. He was wearing his navy suit, arms crossed, looking out at the city like Batman. If Batman were a middle manager with a receding hairline.
The caption read: Big things coming. Expanding the footprint. Taking the family legacy to the next level. #CEO #RealEstate #Empire #GrindNeverStops
He had not leased that office. I knew for a fact he could not afford the rent on a space like that. Not yet. He was just touring it. But the narrative he was spinning was clear: the deal was done. He was already measuring the drapes for a kingdom he did not own. The comment section was filled with congratulations from his golf buddies and distant cousins who were hoping to be invited to the launch party. Way to go, Derek. A true leader. Your grandfather would be proud.
I almost threw my phone across the room. They had no idea. They did not know that the legacy he was hashtagging was currently sitting in a fireproof safe under the name Ironwood Holdings.
Then the phone calls started. Tiffany was the first wave. She called me on Tuesday afternoon while I was editing a batch of photos for a jewelry catalog. Her ringtone, usually annoying, sounded like a siren.
“Hey, Ivy.” Her voice was bright, sugary, and entirely fake. “I am just calling to check on you. We know this week is going to be so emotional for you.”
“I am fine, Tiffany,” I said, keeping my hands steady on the mouse.
“Good. Good,” she said. I could hear the sound of her nails tapping against something hard. Probably a glass of wine. “Derek is just so worried about you. He feels bad that you have to sit through all this legal boring stuff on Friday. He was saying last night that he really wants to make sure you are protected.”
“Protected from what?” I asked.
“Oh, you know,” she laughed, a tinkling sound that grated on my nerves. “The stress. Property management is a nightmare, sweetie. Tenants calling at all hours. Pipes bursting. Insurance claims. It is not for creative people like you. You need your headspace for your art. Your photography is so cute.”
