Chapter 8 - The Clearing of the House
By two o'clock that afternoon, the rain had begun to fall over Alpharetta, a cold, gray drizzle that turned the manicured lawns of our old suburban neighborhood into slippery mud.
I stood in the entryway of the four-thousand-square-foot house that Mason and I had bought four years ago.
The front door was wide open. Outside, two massive black moving vans from a commercial relocation company were backed up to the driveway.
A team of ten workers in gray uniforms was moving through the house under the direct supervision of Arthur Vance and three private security guards.
They were not packing furniture to be moved to the Stone estate.
They were clearing it out completely.
"Every item purchased using funds derived from Bennett Logistics accounts is subject to immediate corporate asset forfeiture," Arthur explained as he stood beside me in the foyer, holding a clip-board with a thick inventory manifest. "The house itself was held under a mortgage guaranteed by Stone Global capital. The foreclosure papers were filed at noon."
I walked through the empty living room.
The high-end Italian leather sofas, the seventy-inch television, the custom mahogany dining table where Mason had hosted his business associate dinners—all of it was being tagged with red inventory stickers and carried out to the trucks to be auctioned off at public bankruptcy sales.
I didn't care about any of it. None of it had ever felt like mine anyway.
I walked down the hallway toward the small bedroom at the back of the house—the room with the yellow painted walls and the hand-drawn cloud murals near the ceiling.
Daisy’s room.
When I stepped across the threshold, I found my father standing near the small white crib. He had his hands behind his back, looking down at a wooden toy chest filled with stuffed animals and picture books.
He looked smaller in this room, his grand, terrifying aura softened by the tiny space filled with soft pastel colors.
"Alyssa," he said gently without turning around.
"Dad," I murmured, stepping up beside him.
He reached into the wooden chest and pulled out a small, plush white bunny with floppy ears—Daisy’s favorite toy, the one she had taken with her to every doctor’s appointment since she was an infant.
He held it carefully between his large hands, as if it were made of delicate glass.
"I never held her," Garrett whispered, his voice catching in his throat—a sound I had never heard in my entire life.
I looked at him, my heart breaking anew, not with the bitter anger I had felt for Mason, but with a deep, terrible sadness for the years we had lost.
"She had your eyes, Dad," I said softly, tears finally trickling down my cheeks, hot and clean. "She had those same steel-gray eyes. Every time she got mad because I wouldn't give her an extra cookie, she would narrow them just like you do when you're looking at a bad contract."
Garrett lowered his head, a single tear slipping down his nose and absorbing into the white fur of the plush bunny.
"I was so proud of you, Alyssa," he whispered, his voice trembling with an emotion he had kept locked away behind four billion dollars and forty years of corporate warfare. "The day you walked out of my house five years ago... I was terrified. But I was proud because you had my fire. You refused to be controlled."
He turned to look at me, his gray eyes shining with raw, unvarnished love.
"I should have broken down that door three years ago," he said. "I should have swept in and pulled you away from that bastard the moment Daisy was born. I let my pride keep me in Buckhead while my daughter and granddaughter were suffering in silence."
"You came when I called, Dad," I said, reaching out and taking his arm. "That’s all that matters. You came."
Garrett wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, regaining his composure with the swift, decisive strength that defined him. He carefully placed the white bunny into a soft leather bag he had brought with him.
"This room will not be auctioned," Garrett declared firmly. "Every item in this room will be cataloged and brought to the estate. We will build a garden in the north courtyard at Buckhead—a sanctuary for Daisy. A place where you can sit with her whenever you want."
I looked around the yellow room one last time—at the cloud murals, the white crib, the small pink carpet near the door.
"Thank you, Dad," I whispered.
Arthur Vance appeared in the doorway, holding his tablet.
"Mr. Stone," Arthur said quietly. "The preliminary hearing for Mason Bennett and Chloe Palmer has been set for nine o'clock tomorrow morning at the Fulton County Superior Court."
Garrett looked at Arthur, his face returning to that cold, indestructible granite posture.
"Ensure the media is fully briefed, Arthur," Garrett commanded. "I want every newspaper, every television station, and every financial news network in the state sitting in that courtroom."
May you like
He turned to me, offering his arm.
"Let’s go home, Alyssa. Tomorrow, we finish this."
