Chapter 5 - The Fall of the Favorite
By Wednesday afternoon, the social facade my sister had spent ten years constructing had completely disintegrated.
Real estate agencies in the city are tight-knit communities. When news broke that Madison Johnson-Miller was under active investigation for mortgage fraud, document forgery, and identity theft, her broker license was immediately suspended pending a formal hearing by the state board.
Her high-end clients dropped her within hours. The luxury listings she bragged about at dinner parties were transferred to rival agents.
I was sitting in my new living room—the very room where three days ago I had been ordered to leave in ten minutes—watching the afternoon rain slide down the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The lock on the front door had been rekeyed with a high-security digital system. A private security team kept a quiet guard at the end of the driveway.
A heavy knock sounded at the double oak doors.
I walked to the security monitor beside the entryway. Standing on the covered porch, soaked from the pouring rain, was Madison.
She didn't look like the flawless, radiant woman who had slapped me across the cheek. Her designer coat was muddy at the hem, her hair was plastered to her forehead, and her face was pale, sunken, and stained with running mascara.
I touched the intercom button. "You are violating a temporary restraining order, Madison."
Through the speaker, I heard her sharp, ragged gasp. She leaned toward the camera, her hands pressed against the glass panel of the door.
"Natalie! Please! Answer the door!" she sobbed, her voice breaking frantically. "Please, Natalie! I know you’re in there! Open the door!"
"Leave, Madison. The security guards will call the police in two minutes."
"Jake left me!" she screamed through the speaker, her fists thumping weakly against the solid wood. "He cleared his things out of our apartment! His father served me with annulment papers this morning! They’re suing me for forgery! Natalie, please, he’s taking everything!"
I stood on the warm marble floor inside, watching her through the crisp color monitor.
"You did that to yourself when you forged his signature on a loan," I said calmly into the mic.
"It was Mom and Dad’s idea!" Madison shrieked, her voice turning desperate, shifting blame with the instinct of a trapped animal. "They told me the trust money was mine to use! They said you were too broken to ever need that much money! Dad set up the shell companies! He handed me the papers and told me to sign Jake’s name so the bank wouldn't ask questions about our debt-to-income ratio! I was just following his advice!"
"You were thirty years old, Madison," I replied, my voice steady and cold. "You weren't a child being dragged along. You enjoyed every single luxury that money bought. You wore my blood on your fingers like diamond rings."
"I hit you!" she wept, dropping to her knees on the wet stone porch, clutching her hands together in a gesture of pathetic prayer. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry I slapped you! I was angry! I was scared because I knew the payment was due and the account was empty! Please, Natalie, tell the prosecutor not to file criminal charges! I can't go to prison! I won't survive in prison!"
I stared at the image of my sister kneeling in the rain.
For twenty years, I had craved her approval. I had wanted her to invite me to sit with her at lunch. I had wanted her to include me in family photos. I had spent countless nights wondering what was so wrong with me that my sister hated my very existence.
Now, looking at her broken, begging form through a security screen, I realized something liberating:
There was never anything wrong with me.
She had hated me because my presence was a constant, living reminder of the crime she and my parents were committing every single day. My existence was a mirror reflecting their greed, so they tried to break the mirror.
"You gave me ten minutes to leave this house, Madison," I said slowly into the intercom. "I gave you five."
"Natalie, please—!"
"Now you have zero."
I pressed the mute button on the intercom, turning off the video monitor.
May you like
Through the heavy oak door, I heard the faint sound of a security cruiser pulling into the driveway, its tires crunching on the gravel. I heard the firm, authoritative voices of two guards instructing her to stand up and step away from the residence.
I turned my back on the front door, walked back into the quiet living room, and sat down at the head of the dining table to drink my tea.
