„Czy to… Ty, Olivio?!” Moja teściowa zbladła. Pięć lat temu wyrzuciła mnie z domu, kiedy byłam w ciąży – a wczoraj kupiłam ich dom na aukcji długów. „Kochanie, uratowałaś nas!” – powiedział mój były – ten sam mężczyzna, który kiedyś widział, jak płaczę na schodach – po czym pobiegł mnie przytulić. Uśmiechnęłam się i powiedziałam…

“There’s no need to call anyone, Leo,” I said.

My voice was dangerously soft.

I reached into my leather briefcase, which I placed on the floor beside me, and pulled out a crisp folded document.

I held it out like an offering.

“This is the deed,” I said. “My name right here.”

He snatched it from my hand.

His eyes scanned the page frantically.

The color drained from his face as he read my full name—Olivia May Carter—listed as the sole proprietor.

He looked from the paper to me and back again, bravado crumbling into dust.

“How?” was all he managed.

“Hard work,” I replied.

I took the deed back and tucked it away.

“You should try it sometime.”

He let out a sound that was half growl, half scoff.

But he didn’t speak.

Not because he suddenly found manners.

Because his brain was still trying to catch up.

I turned from them, leaving them standing in their shock, and walked into the living room.

The sight that greeted me was a physical blow.

The grand piano my father used to play—the one he’d taught me “Chopsticks” on—was gone.

In its place was an absurdly large flat-screen television, dark and imposing like a tombstone.

The built-in bookshelves he had crafted by hand were half empty, filled with cheap trinkets and dusty DVDs instead of the leather-bound classics.

Even the rug was different.

Dad’s old Persian rug, the one with the frayed corner he refused to replace because it had “character,” was gone.

This one was a thin, synthetic thing that looked like it came from a clearance aisle.

I remembered.

They had sold everything.

Piece by piece, they had sold off my father’s life—my childhood—to fund their own mediocrity.

A wave of pure, cold rage washed over me.

So potent it almost made me dizzy.

It solidified the last lingering fragment of doubt I had about what I was doing.

This wasn’t just about revenge anymore.

This was about reclamation.

“The piano is gone,” I said.

My voice sounded hollow, like it was coming from a room deeper than my throat.

I ran a finger through the thick layer of dust on the mantelpiece.

“Dad loved that piano.”

“We… we needed the money,” Brenda stammered from the doorway.

She tried to find an angle, a way to appeal to my humanity.

“Things have been difficult.”

“Difficult?” I spun around.

My voice rose for the first time, sharp with disbelief.

“Difficult is being eighteen years old with fifty dollars in your pocket and a trash bag of your clothes. Difficult is sleeping on a friend’s couch and crying yourself to sleep every night because the only family you have left threw you away like garbage.”

I swallowed hard.

My chest tightened.

“Difficult is working an overnight shift cleaning offices just so you can afford instant noodles for dinner. Don’t you dare talk to me about difficult.”

Leo found his voice again, spurred on by my anger.

“You deserved it,” he said. “You were always a little leech, hanging on Dad, pretending to be so perfect.”

“I was his daughter!” I yelled.

The sound echoed in the cavernous, empty-feeling room.

“Something you never understood, Leo. You were just the son of the woman he married after my mom died. You were a package deal. He tolerated you, but he loved me.”

The words hit their mark.

Leo flinched as if I’d physically struck him.

Brenda let out a small, wounded gasp.

Good.

Let them feel a fraction of the pain I had endured for five years.

I took a deep breath.

I pulled the icy control back around myself like a coat.

I was the one with the power now.

I had to remember that.

I walked back towards them, stopping a few feet away, forcing them to look up at me.

“The moving trucks will be here tomorrow morning,” I said.

My voice returned to a calm, business-like tone.

“They will be putting all of my new furniture into the house.”

Brenda’s face crumpled.

“So that’s it?” she whispered. “You’re just going to throw us out onto the street? Olivia, please. This is our home.”

“No,” I said.

I looked her dead in the eye.

“This is my home. It always was. You were just temporary tenants.”

I let the words hang in the air.

I watched the last glimmer of hope die in her eyes.

She and Leo exchanged a panicked look.

They had nowhere to go.

I knew that.

I had made sure of it.

Their credit was shot.

Their bank accounts empty.

They were utterly, completely ruined.

This was the moment.

The culmination of five years of planning.

I could tell them to get out, watch them shuffle away in defeat, and that would be the end of it.

But that wasn’t enough.

It was too clean.

Too easy.

I wanted them to understand.

I wanted them to pay.

“I’m not going to throw you out on the street,” I said.

I watched a flicker of pathetic relief cross Brenda’s face.

I smiled.

A slow, deliberate curving of my lips that held no warmth whatsoever.

“Unlike some people,” I added. “I have a conscience.”

I paused.

I let them lean into the false hope.

I let them think that maybe, just maybe, the broken girl they remembered was still inside me.

“You can stay,” I continued.

My voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

They both stared at me, dumbfounded.

“On one condition,” I said. “You’re going to work for me. You’re going to earn your keep. Brenda, you’ll be my housekeeper. This place is a pigsty. You’ll have it spotless.”

I shifted my gaze to Leo.

“Leo,” I said, “you’ll be the groundskeeper. The yard is a disgrace. You’ll fix it. You will live in the guest rooms above the garage, and you will work to pay back every single penny of the debt I just settled for you.”

I took a slow breath.

“You have one hour to decide. Accept my terms, or your belongings will be on the curb before lunch.”

The silence that followed my offer was heavier than the humid air.

It was thick.

Suffocating.

A blanket of their humiliation and my cold, hard victory.

Leo looked like he was about to have an aneurysm.

A vein throbbed in his temple.

His face shifted to a mottled shade of purple.

“You’re insane,” he finally choked out.

He turned to his mother like she could save him.

“She’s insane. We’re not doing this. I would rather sleep in a ditch than work for her.”