Chapter 8: The Property
I stepped outside the café and called Marcus back.
"Talk to me," I said.
"The rental property," he said.
"The one Julian co-owns with your father.
I had a colleague pull the title records this morning — standard background work.
There's something you need to know."
"Go ahead."
"The property has a mortgage.
A second mortgage, taken out fourteen months ago.
The lender is a private finance company.
The loan amount is $85,000."
I leaned against the wall of the building.
"Against a property worth $200,000."
"Against a property worth $200,000.
But here's the part that matters.
The loan is in arrears.
Four months of missed payments.
The lender has issued a notice of default."
"So the property is about to go into foreclosure."
"Not yet.
But the window is closing.
And the loan — the $85,000 second mortgage — is listed under two names."
I already knew what he was going to say.
"Julian," I said.
"And my father."
"Julian and your father," Marcus confirmed.
"They took the loan out together fourteen months ago.
The stated purpose on the application was business investment.
The actual use of the funds—" He paused.
"I can't tell you with certainty.
But the timing lines up with Julian's wedding planning.
He started booking vendors thirteen months ago."
The imported flowers.
The live band.
The crystal rentals.
The celebrity photographer.
The five-tier cake.
Julian hadn't been planning to pay me back from a property sale.
He had already borrowed against the property to fund the wedding.
The money I had been covering was the overflow — the gap between what he had borrowed and what the wedding actually cost.
And my father had co-signed that loan.
My father, who had told me his money was tied up.
His money wasn't tied up.
It was already spent.
On the same wedding he had watched me drain my savings to fund.
"They borrowed $85,000," I said.
"And then came to me for the rest."
"That's what the timeline suggests."
"And now the loan is in default."
"Four months behind.
The lender has been patient, but the notice of default is formal.
If they don't cure the arrears within the next thirty days, the lender moves to foreclosure proceedings."
I stood on the pavement outside the café.
Through the window I could see Chloe still at the table, her hands wrapped around a glass of water someone must have brought her.
She was staring at the surface of the table.
"Marcus," I said.
"What happens to the loan if Julian doesn't have the wedding income he was expecting?"
"He wasn't expecting wedding income.
He was expecting the wedding to happen and then to sell his stake in the property at full value — before the foreclosure became public knowledge and tanked the sale price."
"So the wedding was the cover story."
"The wedding was the deadline.
If he gets married, life looks stable, he finds a buyer quickly, sells his stake, uses the proceeds to cure the mortgage arrears, and nobody outside the family ever knows how close it came."
"And if the wedding collapses."
"If the wedding collapses, the buyer gets nervous.
The sale falls through or the price drops significantly.
The arrears compound.
The foreclosure proceeds.
Julian and your father lose the property, the equity, and their credit standing in one sequence."
I looked back through the window at Chloe.
She had told me she wasn't sure she wanted to marry someone who had done this to his own sister.
She didn't yet know the full shape of what he had done.
"I'm going back inside," I said.
"I need to tell her something."
"Be careful," Marcus said.
"What you tell her and how you tell it matters.
If this goes to litigation—"
"I'm not going to litigate," I said.
"I just think she deserves to know what she's walking into."
A pause.
"All right.
Call me when you're done."
I ended the call and pushed open the café door.
Chloe looked up when I sat back down.
She read something in my face.
"What is it?" she said.
May you like
I set my phone on the table.
"I need to tell you about a mortgage," I said.
