Chapter 4 - The Eviction of the ParasitesWhile Michael was being booked at the downtown precinct, a much more public and humiliating spectacle was unfolding at the luxury apartment.
Hattie Coleman sat in her plush velvet armchair in the living room, sipping her morning tea and complaining loudly to the maid service about the dust on the mantelpiece. Suddenly, the front door rattled violently. Before Hattie could demand to know who was knocking with such appalling lack of manners, the heavy oak door swung open.
It wasn't Michael.
It was a team of four professional movers, accompanied by a locksmith and two court-appointed bailiffs carrying an official notice of writ of possession.
Hattie leaped out of her chair, her face contorting with rage. "What is the meaning of this?! How dare you enter this home! I am Hattie Rinaldi-Coleman! Call my son immediately—this is private property!"
The lead bailiff stepped forward, holding the court document up to her face. "Ma'am, this property is legally registered under the sole, unencumbered trust of Penelope Carter. The lease held by your son has been legally voided due to fraud and non-payment. You have exactly thirty minutes to gather your personal belongings and vacate the premises."
"Vacate?!" Hattie shrieked, her voice reaching a pitch that could shatter crystal. "You can't kick me out! This is my son's apartment! Penelope is just a working-class nobody who couldn't survive a single day without us!"
"Actually, Mrs. Coleman," a calm, cool voice echoed from the doorway.
Hattie spun around. Penelope stood in the entryway, flanked by Marcus Vance and a private security guard. She wore designer sunglasses pushed up into her hair, looking utterly untouchable.
"Penelope!" Hattie gasped, her expression shifting instantly from blind fury to frantic, greasy desperation. "Oh, thank goodness! There’s been some terrible mistake! Some hooligans are trying to throw us out into the street! Tell them to leave—we’re family, after all!"
"We were never family, Hattie," Penelope said, stepping into the apartment and looking around the pristine living room with clinical indifference. "You were a guest who overstayed her welcome by six months, funded by my capital, living in a home you constantly insulted."
"You ungrateful little brat!" Hattie’s mask of civility completely shattered, revealing the vicious, desperate bully underneath. She lunged forward, her fingers clawing toward Penelope’s face. "I’ll destroy you! I’ll ruin your reputation! You think you can treat a Rinaldi like trash?!"
Before Hattie’s fingernails could even graze Penelope’s coat, the private security guard stepped effortlessly into path, catching Hattie’s wrist in a firm, unyielding grip and spinning her around toward the sofa, forcing her down into the cushions.
"Do not touch her," the guard warned coldly.
"Pack your bags, Hattie," Penelope said, looking down at the shaking, humiliated woman with absolute pity. "The moving van outside is paid for by my office to transport your belongings directly to a storage unit in Sedona. As for your debt-ridden house back there? My legal team bought the mortgage note from the bank this morning. By tomorrow, it goes on the foreclosure auction block."
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Hattie let out a strangled, animalistic cry of pure, unadulterated despair, burying her face in her hands as the movers marched past her, systematically lifting her porcelain figurines, her antique frames, and her expensive clothes, tossing them carelessly into large cardboard boxes.
The house of cards she had built on lies, cruelty, and exploitation was finally collapsing around her ears.
