Chapter 3 - THE EVICTION AT DAWN
The gray morning mist hung heavy over the East River docks, clinging to the rotting wooden piers and casting a ghostly pallor over the tenement buildings lining Maple Street.
My customized black Mercedes Maybach pulled up to the curb with a low, expensive hum. Four of my top security operatives flanked the vehicle as the hydraulic lift lowered my wheelchair out of the side sliding door.
The neighborhood was a nightmare of urban decay—peeling paint, rusted fire escapes, and streets littered with trash bags torn open by stray dogs. At the center of it all stood Apartment 4B, where a squad of city bailiffs and private sheriff's deputies were already stacking cardboard boxes, worn-out furniture, and children's toys onto the wet concrete sidewalk.
"Please! Just give me one more week!" a desperate, exhausted voice cried out.
I rolled my chair forward through the mud, my guards clearing a path instantly.
Standing on the apartment landing was Marissa Vance. She looked thirty-something, with dark circles under her tired eyes, her hair pulled back in a frantic ponytail, holding a cardboard box against her chest like a shield. Beside her stood Leo, fists clenched, glaring furiously at the deputies.
And hiding behind her skirt, peeking out with wide, defiant brown eyes, was Lily.
When Lily saw me rolling toward them in my high-tech motorized chair, her expression didn't show fear. Instead, she pointed a small, dirty finger right at me and whispered loudly, "Look, Leo! It's the unfinished statue man!"
Marissa gasped, turning around quickly. When her eyes locked onto mine—the terrifying, infamous Caleb Marino, the man who owned half the city and controlled the very company that had destroyed her family—all the color drained completely from her face.
She dropped the box she was holding. It split open against the concrete, spilling old photo albums and children's books across the pavement.
"Mr... Mr. Marino," Marissa stammered, her voice trembling violently as she stepped protectively in front of her children. "Please. Take everything else. Take the building, take the land, do whatever your corporation wants. Just... leave my kids out of this. Give us twenty-four hours to find a shelter."
I didn't answer right away. I rolled my chair closer, stopping just inches from the scattered photo albums. I looked down at the pictures—pictures of Julian Vance smiling proudly beside Marissa on their wedding day. Pictures of a baby Leo. And then, a faded Polaroid tucked into the corner of the box caught my eye.
My breath hitched.
The Polaroid showed a young woman standing beside my late wife, Audrey, outside a university library in downtown Boston. Written on the back in my wife's handwriting were the words: July 2014. With my dearest cousin, Clara Vance.
Cousin.
Audrey had never told me she had a cousin named Clara. In fact, Audrey’s entire family had supposedly perished in a fire when she was a teenager—a tragic backstory she rarely spoke about.
"Marissa," I said, my voice cutting through the damp morning air with razor-sharp precision. "Your husband’s name wasn't Julian Vance by birth, was it? His mother's maiden name was Clara Vance. Audrey’s blood relative."
Marissa stared at me, trembling like a trapped bird. "You... you didn't know?"
"Know what?" I demanded, leaning forward in my chair.
"Your precious wife Audrey didn't lose her family in a fire, Mr. Marino," Marissa said, her voice rising with a mixture of bitter grief and long-suppressed fury. "Her father cut her out of the family trust because she married you—a ruthless, power-hungry street thug who built his empire on blood and intimidation. And my husband, Julian, wasn't an embezzler! He was murdered by your own corporate board members because he discovered your company was illegally dumping toxic waste into the river system right beneath these very warehouses!"
The world seemed to tilt on its axis.
Toxic waste? Embezzlement? Murder?
Before I could demand answers, a screech of tires echoed down the street. Three black SUVs bearing the insignia of the city's corrupt municipal transit authority roared around the corner, screeching to a halt right beside my Maybach.
May you like
A dozen armed men wearing tactical vests and riot helmets jumped out, led by none other than Arthur Vance—Marissa's uncle by marriage, and a corrupt city councilman who sat on my own corporate board of directors.
"Well, well, well," Councilman Vance sneered, stepping forward with a cold, predatory grin on his face, holding a silenced pistol casually by his side. "Looks like the crippled king decided to do his own dirty work today. Too bad you won't live long enough to enjoy the view from your winter garden, Caleb."
