“No!” Robert yelled, a sudden, desperate burst of energy hitting him. “Tell them, Kyle! Tell them what we found out tonight!”

“I said shut up!” Kyle lunged, but I shoved myself between them, pushing Kyle back by his shoulders.

“Tell me what?!” I yelled, glaring at Robert.

Robert pulled his knees to his chest, refusing to look at me. “Your mother… she wasn’t stupid. She knew how Kyle and I talked behind closed doors. She knew we were going to force you out of the house once she passed.”

My stomach dropped. “You planned it while she was dying?”

“We didn’t think she could hear us from the hospice bed,” Robert choked out, burying his face in his hands. “But she did. She heard everything. She left me the house… but she didn’t tell me it had two mortgages on it. It’s facing foreclosure in thirty days. I’m completely bankrupt.”

Kyle let out a manic, humorless laugh, running his hands through his hair. “Yeah! Left us with a mountain of debt and a rotting house! But the life insurance? The stock portfolio? Two million dollars, completely missing!”

Kyle suddenly got right in my face, his breath smelling of stale alcohol. “Where is it? What did you do with it?”

“I don’t have anything!” I shouted, pushing him back again. “You were at the will reading! You saw the paperwork!”

“The lawyer called an hour ago,” Robert interrupted, his voice trembling. “There was an addendum. A private trust your mother set up three days before she passed. It bypassed the will entirely.”

The hallway went completely silent, save for the howling wind pushing through the open front door.

“The trust,” Robert whispered, finally looking up to meet my eyes, “is entirely in your name. All of it. The lawyer is mailing you the keys tomorrow.”

I stared at them. I looked at the shattered glass, the ripped boxes, the absolute chaos of a home built on greed collapsing in on itself.

Kyle lunged forward, grabbing my jacket. “You’re going to sign it over to us! That’s my money! We are her family!”

I didn’t argue. I didn’t scream. I just looked at his desperate, angry face, and then down at the man who had pretended to be my father for a decade.

Slowly, I peeled Kyle’s hands off my jacket.

“Pack your junk, Kyle,” I said softly, echoing the exact words he had used against me a week ago. “It’s not my problem.”

I turned my back on them, walking out the front door and pulling it shut behind me. As I walked down the driveway toward my worn-out sedan, I could hear Kyle start screaming and throwing things inside the house.

I smiled, unlocked my car, and drove back to my motel room. For the first time since my mother passed, I finally felt like I could sleep.