Chapter 3 - The Cold Light of Day
The house emptied in less than five minutes. The silence that settled over the mansion was heavy, broken only by the sound of Prudence sobbing dramatically on the velvet sofa.
I ignored her. I walked back to the filthy kitchen, scooped Jamie up in my arms, and guided Sarah into the main house. We bypassed the living room entirely and walked up the grand sweeping staircase to the master bedroom—the room I had explicitly instructed my mother to prepare for my wife five years ago.
When I opened the door, my blood boiled all over again. The room was decorated in lavish pinks and golds. Prudence’s designer clothes were scattered across the king-sized bed. My sister had taken the master suite for herself.
Without a word, I walked to the massive walk-in closet, grabbed an armful of Prudence's expensive silk dresses, and threw them out into the hallway.
"What are you doing?!" Prudence shrieked, running up the stairs. "Those are Prada!"
"They belong to my wife," I snarled, slamming the heavy oak door in her face and locking it.
I turned back to Sarah and Jamie. They were standing awkwardly by the door, afraid to step on the plush white carpet. My heart shattered all over again. I spent the next hour running a hot, foaming bath for them. I ordered delivery from the most expensive steakhouse in the city, tipping the driver a hundred dollars to get it there in twenty minutes.
I sat on the edge of the bed, watching my six-year-old son eat a medium-rare filet mignon like he had never tasted meat before. Sarah ate slowly, her hands trembling, constantly glancing at the door as if expecting my mother to burst in and snatch the food away.
"No one is ever going to hurt you again," I promised her, kneeling by the bed. "I swear on my life."
Sarah broke down, burying her face in her hands. "David... it was awful. As soon as you left, they took my phone. They locked me out of the main house. They told everyone in town I had abandoned you and ran away. They made me clean the gutters, scrub the floors... if I didn't, they wouldn't give Jamie anything to eat."
The sheer sociopathy of it was staggering. My mother. The woman who raised me.
I didn't sleep that night. I sat in a chair by the door, watching my family sleep in a real bed, guarding them like a sentinel.
When the sun rose, I didn't wake them. I quietly unlocked the door, walked downstairs, and stepped out into the crisp morning air. My first stop was not the kitchen to confront my mother. My first stop was the Bank of Bayside Heights.
I sat across from the branch manager, a man who had known my family for years.
"I need a complete audit of every wire transfer I made over the last five years," I demanded, sliding my ID across the mahogany desk. "Every withdrawal. Every purchase. Everything."
The manager looked nervous. "Mr. Vance, your mother has been the primary account holder on the joint account. We assumed—"
"Print it," I commanded.
Ten minutes later, I was staring at a stack of papers that documented a five-year long robbery. Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Spa days, luxury car leases, designer handbags, lavish vacations to Europe. They had drained almost everything I sent. There was barely ten thousand dollars left in liquid cash.
"Freeze the accounts," I said, my voice eerily calm. "Cancel all credit cards associated with this account. Remove Gertrude Vance and Prudence Vance from all authorizations immediately."
"Of course, sir. Right away."
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My next stop was to the most ruthless real estate attorney in the city. By noon, I had a stack of legal documents in my passenger seat.
My mother and sister thought they had stolen my life. They were about to find out that I was the one holding the deed to their destruction.
