When I answered, Daniel didn’t say hello.
‘Dad, why is there a man at my front door asking for my keys?’
I touched the cut on my lip and looked at Elena across the conference table.
‘Because the house sold at 11:49,’ I said. ‘And your right to stay there ended at noon.’
Silence.
Then he laughed once, sharp and ugly, like I had told him a joke too stupid to finish.
‘You can’t sell my house.’
‘I can sell a house I paid for, titled, insured, and kept in my company name for five years,’ I said. ‘That’s what I just did.’
He started talking over me. Threats. Half sentences. My name. Elena’s name. The word illegal, repeated like volume could turn it true.
Elena held out her hand, and I passed her the phone.
Her voice was steady. ‘Mr. Vega, this is Elena Ruiz. Title transfer funded this morning. We sent the notice to the email on your occupancy agreement. The representative at the house is there for keys, garage remotes, and inventory access. If you want copies, come to my office.’
Daniel went quiet again.
He had signed that occupancy agreement the day he moved in. He never read it. That much I knew because he had signed three pages without taking his phone from his ear.
The agreement was simple. The house belonged to Mastiff Holdings. He and Sophia could live there at my discretion. If occupancy was revoked, they had to surrender access and remove personal property within the time stated.
He called me a controlling old man.
I let him.
Then he said, ‘I’m coming there.’
‘Do that,’ Elena said. ‘But if you raise a hand to your father again, I will have you arrested before you finish the second sentence.’
She ended the call and set the phone down between us.
Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. The air conditioner hummed. Somewhere down the hall, a copier started up and stopped.
‘I should’ve done this sooner,’ I said.
Elena studied my face. ‘Sooner, maybe. Faster, no. This was the first time he gave you no room to lie to yourself.’
That was the thing I paid her for. Not just paperwork. Accuracy.
Daniel arrived twenty-two minutes later with his tie loose and his hair still damp from rushing out of the office garage.
He didn’t look like the man from the night before. He looked smaller. Not humbled. Just smaller, like the room had finally stopped agreeing with him.
The receptionist buzzed him in only because Elena told her to. She had already called building security and told them to stay close.
He came through the door hot.
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