Chapter 2: The Signature They Needed by Morning
PART 2
I stared at Hailey's message until the words blurred.
An architect.
A deposit.
A renovation I never approved.
My name was on that house.
My salary had paid every mortgage payment for six years.
And somehow, they had found a way to move forward without me.
I called Brandon.
He picked up on the first ring.
"Charlotte, just come home.
We can talk about this."
"Talk about what?
The renovation I never agreed to?
The architect coming tomorrow?"
Silence.
Then, quietly: "Mom found a way to refinance.
It's already in motion.
The paperwork just needs one more signature."
My hand went cold.
"Whose signature, Brandon?"
He didn't answer.
I looked across the table at Skylar.
She had fallen asleep in the café booth, her cheek resting on her folded arms, her food only half finished.
"Brandon.
Whose signature?"
"…Yours.
But Charlotte, if you just come home and sign, everything stays clean.
Nobody has to know about the loans."
There it was.
He wasn't panicking because I blocked the cards.
He was panicking because without my signature by morning, someone else would find out what they had already done.
"What loans, Brandon?
Say it out loud."
The line went quiet for a long time.
Then I heard Gertrude's voice in the background.
"Tell her if she doesn't sign, she'll lose more than the house."
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What Gertrude meant by that threat — and what Brandon had already signed away — is in the full story.
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Click the link below to read what Charlotte uncovered next.
The truth is worse than anyone at that table wanted her to know.
