“And who would assume responsibility for the property?” Caldwell asked.
“My wife and I are willing to do that,” Jamal said. “It would be a sacrifice, of course, but we want to keep the asset in the family.”
Sacrifice.
Brittany nodded solemnly from the gallery.
Her eyes shone with hunger.
Judge Whitman wrote something on his pad.
Caldwell turned to my sister. “The plaintiffs call Brittany Price.”
Brittany rose slowly, one hand on her belly, as if the entire courtroom existed to witness her maternal courage.
She took the oath.
Then she lied with the softness of a nursery rhyme.
“Cassidy used to be so different,” she said. “Now she ignores our calls. She acts paranoid. She thinks everyone wants something from her.”
I rested my hands on the table.
Everyone did want something from me.
My condo.
My money.
My compliance.
My silence.
Caldwell tilted his head. “What would your family like to see happen?”
Brittany sniffed. “Mom and Dad have a finished basement in the suburbs. It’s safe. Quiet. Cassidy could stay there while she gets help.”
The basement.
A cold little laugh almost escaped me.
They wanted my riverfront condo for Brittany and Jamal.
They wanted me in my parents’ basement, watched like a problem.
Brittany continued. “Jamal and I could move into the condo and take care of it. The guest room gets beautiful morning light. It would be perfect for the baby.”
There it was.
Not hidden.
Not subtle.
She had already decorated my home.
Evelyn placed two fingers lightly on my wrist.
“Let her,” she whispered.
So I let her.
My mother testified next.
Patricia walked to the stand in beige heels and a performance of grief.
She told the judge I had been “difficult” since childhood.
She said I isolated myself.
She said I created fantasies about important work.
She described the night two years earlier when she had entered my condo without permission and found me exhausted on the sofa, surrounded by coffee cups and security reports.
“She was muttering about firewalls,” Patricia said, voice cracking. “International breaches. Protocols. It was terrifying.”
I remembered that night.
My company had been under attack.
A coordinated cyber intrusion targeting one of our banking clients had run for six days. I had slept in fragments, eaten granola bars over keyboards, and stopped a breach that could have exposed millions of customer records.
My mother had used a spare key I never gave her.
