Chapter 1

A real estate agent showed up at my door with five burly guys, claiming my brother had used my house as collateral for a 2-million-dollar loan.

I froze. The property deed was supposed to be locked in my safe.

I opened it. Empty.

"Your brother said you're a good-for-nothing sister, and this house would be his sooner or later." The agent smirked and shoved an eviction notice at me. "You have three days to clear out, or we'll bring the sheriff."

I looked at their smug faces and laughed. "Foreclose? On what?"

I slowly pulled out a document. "This property was condemned and delisted a year ago for the Eastside redevelopment. There is no deed left to take."

The agent's face went chalk-white.

Right on cue, my brother called.

I answered and asked him one quiet question that made him crumble.

*****

It was six in the evening when I dragged myself home, exhausted, only to find five burly guys blocking my door.

The lead man in the suit held a folder, his eyes cold as he sized me up.

"You're Queenie Hale, right?" His tone was that of a debt collector.

I instinctively stepped back, eyeing them warily. "Who are you?"

"I'm Jason Miller from Reliance Loans." He pulled out a business card. "Your brother, Henry Hale, used this house as collateral for a 2-million-dollar loan. He's three months overdue, so we're here to repossess the property."

My head was spinning, and I blurted out, "Impossible. This house belongs to me. How could Henry do something like this?"

Jason let out a cold laugh. "Take a look at the contract yourself."

He slapped a mortgage contract into my hands. It bore my name in bold, along with a signature and a notary seal.

"I never signed this." My hands started to tremble.

"Doesn't matter if you signed it or not. What matters is that the property deed and notarized papers are all legit." Jason nodded at the burly guys behind him. "This is your eviction notice. Three days to move out, or we'll evict you by force."

My mind went blank as I ran straight inside and opened the safe.

The place where I always kept the deed was empty.

I searched every corner; my hands were shaking so badly. The deed was really gone.

Jason followed me in, leaning against the doorframe. "Don't waste your time. Henry took it ages ago."

He lit a cigarette; the smoke made his sneer even nastier. "Henry said you're a useless sister. This house was always going to be his anyway, so he figured, why not use it ahead of time?"

Those words cut deep.

I remembered Christmas, when Henry came over for the holiday, and his wife, Amy Green, was busy in the kitchen the whole time.

That day, I'd worked late and came home to find Henry alone in my bedroom for quite a while.

He said he was helping me clean up.

So, he'd already had his eye on this house back then.

I took a deep breath, stood up slowly, and took out a folder from the drawer.

"Take the house? On what grounds?" My voice was surprisingly calm.

Jason frowned. "What do you mean?"

I pulled out a certified document bearing the official county seal and spread it in front of him. "This property was delisted a year ago under the Eastside redevelopment project. There's no parcel number left. What exactly are you trying to foreclose on?"

Jason's face went chalk white. He snatched the document from my hands.

The document clearly stated: [This property is officially removed from county records in August 2022 due to redevelopment. Certified.]

"That's impossible." Jason's voice trembled. "We processed the mortgage six months ago. The deed, the land title, the appraisal report. Everything was in order."

"Then that means," I said, locking eyes with him and enunciating every word, "Henry used a voided deed to scam you out of 2 million."

Just as I finished speaking, my phone rang.

The caller ID showed: Henry.

I picked up, kept my voice cool, and said, "Hey, Henry, having fun blowing all that money?"

There was a three-second silence on the other end.

"Queenie, what are you talking about?" Henry's voice was clearly flustered.

I put him on speaker so Jason could hear, too. "I'm talking about you using my house as collateral for a 2-million-dollar loan. The agent is standing right here at my door."

"What agent? I have no idea what you're talking about." Henry denied it flat out. "How could I do something like that?"

Jason snatched the phone from my hand and roared, "Henry, stop playing dumb. You walked into our office six months ago and signed the mortgage papers yourself. Now you want to weasel out of it?"

"I had my reasons." Henry's voice went weak.

"Reasons?" I let out a cold laugh. "Your reason was knowing the house had already been condemned and delisted, but still using a voided deed to con them out of 2 million?"

Amy's shriek came through the line. "What? The house was condemned? What about the payout?"

Of course. Money was all they cared about.