Chapter 3 - The Threat and the Truth
Julian straightened up from the doorframe, his face losing its casual arrogance. “Maya, you don’t know how corporate structures work. It’s all shielded.”
“It was shielded from me, because you intercepted the mail and used a P.O. Box in another county,” I said, looking directly at my brother. “But it’s not shielded from the IRS. And it certainly wasn’t shielded from a corporate insurance attorney who specialized in fraud detection.”
I flipped another page. It was a copy of a loan application for $250,000, filed just two weeks before the crash. The applicant was listed as Maya Vance. The signature at the bottom was a clumsy, digitized trace of my handwriting.
“You tried to take out a quarter-million-dollar business expansion loan using my identity as the primary guarantor,” I said. “That’s why the rejection letter came to my actual house. The bank’s fraud department flags sudden address discrepancies. That was the thread Ethan pulled.”
My father looked at the loan application, his fingers trembling as he reached out to touch the paper. “You told me that loan was secured through an institutional investor, Julian. You told me your mother handled the collateral.”
“She did!” Julian hissed, glaring at his mother. “Mom, you said she’d never find out! You said Ethan was too busy with his own firm to notice a minor credit ping!”
My mother stepped forward, her expensive linen shirt wrinkling as she balled her hands into fists. She tried to look imposing, tried to use the same venomous glare that had kept me compliant and eager for her approval for over thirty years.
“Listen to me, you ungrateful little girl,” she snarled, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “So what if we used your name? You were living a comfortable life with your lawyer husband while your brother was trying to build something from scratch! We did what we had to do to keep this family afloat! You owe us your very existence. If we want forty thousand dollars to fix a minor accounting mistake, you will give it to us, or so help me, I will make sure you are completely cut off from this family forever!”
May you like
I looked at her—really looked at her—and realized that the desperate need I had carried my entire life to make her proud was entirely dead. It had died on Tuesday, in the rain, while I stood alone by two small graves.
“You can’t cut me off from something that doesn’t exist,” I said softly. “And I don’t owe you anything. But you owe the federal government quite a bit.”
