“Are you Tracy [Last Name]?” he asked when she answered.
“Yes?’ she said cautiously.
He handed her a packet of papers.
“You’ve been served,” he said, then turned and walked away.
“Served?” she shrieked. “What do you mean ‘served’?”
I sipped my coffee.
“What did you do?” she demanded, rounding on me, papers shaking in her hand.
“Exercised my rights as a property owner,” I said. “You have thirty days to vacate. Standard procedure.”
Brandon’s reaction was immediate and predictable.
“This is bull****!” he shouted, slamming his fist on the table. “You can’t do this! Where am I supposed to game?”
“Maybe at a job,” I suggested.
He stormed upstairs. Ten minutes later, something heavy crashed down the stairs.
His gaming chair.
He’d thrown it in a fit of rage. It broke. Plastic cracked.
I didn’t bother to hide my smile.
Sierra burst into tears.
She went Live on Instagram.
Someone sent me the video later. Mascara running, voice wobbling, she said, “My evil stepsister is illegally evicting us from our home. Like, we have nowhere to go. This is actual abuse.”
The comments were… not as sympathetic as she’d hoped.
“Pretty sure it’s not abuse if she owns the house,” one person wrote.
“Didn’t your mom brag about not paying rent for ten years?” another asked.
The best one? “This you?” with a link to one of Tracy’s old Facebook posts.
Because while I’d been quietly gathering evidence, someone else had been doing the Lord’s work on social media.
My mom’s best friend, Elise.
She and Mom had grown up together. She’d been around a lot when I was little. After Mom died, she’d come to visit, bring casseroles, tell stories. Tracy hadn’t liked her—too mouthy, too observant—so she’d slowly pushed Elise out.
But Elise had a Facebook account, a sharp memory, and screenshots of Tracy’s hypocritical posts going back years.
When Tracy posted a long rant about how her “ungrateful stepdaughter was throwing her family out on the street,” Elise commented:
“Didn’t you tell everyone at book club that you’d kick her out ‘the minute she turned eighteen’ because you were sick of her attitude? I still have the messages if you’ve forgotten.”
Toast.
If Tracy’s country club “friends” had been politely distant before, they went radio silent after that. Apparently, “gold-digging stepmother gets evicted from house she thought she’d inherit” wasn’t a good look for their brand.
Tracy scrambled.