Chapter 6: The First Confrontation
Alvin sent the photographs to Inez before he walked through the front gate.
He rang the doorbell.
His parents' doorbell, on his parents' front door, on his parents' property — and he rang it like a visitor.
Derek answered in a linen shirt, holding a coffee mug, wearing an easy smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Alvin.
You should've called."
"I did.
You didn't pick up." Alvin stepped inside without being invited.
"Where are Mom and Dad?"
"Out back, I think." Derek closed the door.
"You want coffee?"
"No." Alvin turned to face his brother in the front hallway.
The house smelled the same — wood polish and old plaster — but the furniture was wrong.
New leather sofa.
A large mounted television where their mother's sewing cabinet used to stand.
"I want to talk about the house."
Derek's smile held.
"Sure.
What about it?"
"You transferred the deed fourteen months ago.
You put it in an LLC."
A beat.
Not long — Derek recovered fast.
"Dad asked me to.
It's an asset protection strategy.
I explained it to them."
"You told my mother she was signing a tax renewal form."
"That's not what happened."
"She told me herself, Derek."
"She's seventy-one years old, Alvin.
She gets confused." Derek set his mug down on the side table — his mother's side table, the one she had refinished herself twice.
"Look, I know this looks a certain way, but I've been here.
You've been in New York sending checks and calling it done.
I'm the one who's been managing everything."
"You've been managing their bank account too." Alvin kept his voice level.
"Thirty-eight hundred dollars a month, routed to an account I don't recognize.
For eight months."
Derek's jaw moved.
"That's household expenses.
Utilities, maintenance—"
"They've been living on two hundred dollars a month, Derek."
"That's not—"
"Paper plates." Alvin took one step closer.
"They eat on paper plates in a storage shed because you told them they couldn't use the kitchen when you have guests.
Our parents.
In their own house."
Derek's easy expression was gone now.
Something harder had replaced it.
"You don't know the full picture."
"Then explain it to me."
"I'm not going to stand here and be interrogated in my own home."
"It's not your home." Alvin said it quietly.
"And we both know it."
Derek picked up his mug again.
His hand was steady, but the coffee moved.
"I think you should leave, Alvin.
Come back when you're ready to have an actual conversation."
"I'll be back," Alvin said.
"With my attorney."
He walked to the front door and opened it himself.
Behind him, Derek said: "You know what your problem is?
You always thought you were the responsible one.
You weren't here.
You have no idea what I've dealt with."
Alvin stopped in the doorway without turning around.
"I have the documents from the bank, Derek.
All of them.
Including Dad's notes."
He walked out and pulled the door shut behind him.
He was halfway down the front path when he heard the dead bolt slide.
Then, through the front window, he saw Derek already on his phone — pacing, talking fast, one hand pressed flat against the glass.
Alvin kept walking.
Inez picked up before the first ring finished.
"How did it go?"
"He knows.
He's calling someone right now."
"His attorney?"
"Or the LLC's registered agent." Alvin reached the sidewalk.
"How fast can we move on the deed challenge?"
"I filed the emergency motion an hour ago," Inez said.
"Judge Harmon's clerk called back twenty minutes ago.
We have a hearing Thursday morning."
Alvin exhaled slowly.
"Thursday."
"That's three days, Alvin.
Keep your parents calm and keep them away from any documents Derek might put in front of them."
"Understood."
"One more thing." Her voice dropped slightly.
"I found the lender.
Derek approached a private equity firm in Charlotte six weeks ago.
He submitted the property as collateral for a bridge loan.
The loan hasn't closed yet, but it's in final review."
Alvin stopped walking.
"How much?"
"Eight hundred thousand dollars."
The street was quiet around him.
"He was going to borrow against their house," Alvin said.
"And they would never have known."
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"Not until it was too late," Inez said.
"Thursday can't come fast enough."
