Chapter Thirteen

The third-floor hallway felt less like an apartment corridor and more like the interior flue of a brick kiln.

Veronica Tinnons walked with her spine locked so rigid it looked painful, her scuffed heels striking the grease-stained concrete in a sharp, frantic staccato. In her right hand, she squeezed a cluttered bundle of dead electronics—Susan’s phone, her own, Andrea’s, and even six-year-old Leo’s tiny tablet, which she had snatched off the sofa in a desperate bid to charge it so the boy would stop his relentless, unbearable crying. Sweat carved pale, muddy tracks through the thick layer of caked powder on her neck, while melted mascara bled into the corners of her eyes, stinging like lye beneath the oppressive heat.

We are the Tinnons, she repeated like a furious mantra, her jaw clenched until her back teeth ached. *We do not beg. We grant an audience.*

She stopped outside Apartment 304. The unit belonged to Mrs. Sterling, a retired school administrator whose pension was quietly supplemented by building sub-lettings and a roaring generator that purred through every grid collapse like a smug, iron heartbeat.

Veronica raised a manicured hand—her nails chipped at the edges, a tiny betrayal she hadn't had time to mask—and struck the mahogany panel with three sharp, demanding raps.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

A muffled shuffle of slippers scraped against interior tiles. The heavy brass deadbolt turned with a dry, mechanical clunk. The door swung open a palm-width, restrained firmly by a thick steel security chain.

Mrs. Sterling peered through the gap, dressed in a crisp yellow cotton housecoat, holding a glowing, fully charged smartphone in her palm. A wave of chilled, air-conditioned luxury rolled out through the narrow opening, grazing Veronica’s sticky, feverish cheeks like a phantom insult.

"Yes, Mrs. Tinnons?" Mrs. Sterling asked flatly, her eyes flicking down to the awkward stack of dead black screens in Veronica’s palm.

Veronica forced her posture even straighter, puffing her chest out beneath her ruined, sweat-stained silk blouse. "Good morning, my dear. As you know, my son—senior corporate executive Andrea Tinnons—is currently finalizing our family’s grand transition into the hilltop estate right across the highway. Because of a minor grid glitch in this block, I need to dock these terminals to your wall socket for a quick fifteen minutes."

Mrs. Sterling paused, her eyebrows arching upward in mock surprise. Then, to Veronica's shock, she unhooked the security chain and swung the door wide open.

"Oh, come in, come in!" Mrs. Sterling cooed, stepping aside with a sharp, patronizing smile. "Plug them right into that extension strip by the console. After all, how could I refuse the mother-in-law of the hour?"

Veronica smirked inwardly, stepping into the air-conditioned sanctuary with her chin held high as she plugged the four dead devices into the extension strip. "It is only proper. We will be moving into the estate before sunset."

Mrs. Sterling leaned against her console, tapping a manicured fingernail against her glowing screen as she watched the device screens barely display low-battery warnings. "It really is unbelievable news, Mrs. Tinnons. It’s all over the financial portals since dawn! Everyone is talking about how Miss Vanessa officially bought out the entire hilltop estate in cash yesterday. The whole property is registered entirely under her maiden name—*Axerold*! Tell me, does a dutiful daughter-in-law usually buy a castle in her maiden name?"

Veronica’s heart leaped with arrogant pride, even as she quickly brushed off the odd detail. "Of course! She bought it under Axerold simply because she never got around to updating her legal documents after the wedding! It's a mere clerical formality! What belongs to her in her maiden name belongs to my son Andrea all the same!"

"Is that so?" Mrs. Sterling chuckled softly, tapping her fingers against her arm. "Because the very same news report mentioned something else quite interesting."

Veronica froze, her hand still resting near the extension cord. "What are you talking about?"

"The local tenant bulletin and the press release explicitly stated that Miss Vanessa formally revoked your master lease here, cut off all corporate ties to Andrea, and slapped a four-thousand-five-hundred-dollar back-rent eviction notice on your door," Mrs. Sterling said, her tone dripping with venomous amusement. "You brag about her buying a multi-million-dollar estate across the road under Axerold, yet the news says she threw you out like garbage and left you to rot in this oven."

Veronica’s face mottled into a violent, bruised magenta. Unable to stomach another second of the humiliation, she yanked the cords violently out of the wall sockets after barely three minutes of charge. The screens flickered weakly, holding on by a thread.

"That is false gossip generated by envious tabloids!" Veronica shrieked, her hands trembling with pure, explosive rage as she grabbed the barely charged devices. "We are not being thrown out! We are leaving this filthy building because we are moving today! Keep your petty mouth off my family's name!"

Mrs. Sterling simply laughed, stepping back and holding the door open. "Whatever you say, Mrs. Tinnons. Don't let the heat burn you on your way out!"

Clack.

The door shut behind her with a sharp, humiliating thud.

Veronica stood in the corridor, her lungs burning, her chest heaving as the humiliating mockery echoed in her ears. She clutched the four practically useless devices tight against her ribs, turned on her heel, and stormed back to Apartment 301.

She shoved the front door open so hard it crashed against the wall, shattering a cheap mirror hanging nearby into glistening shards.

Susan jumped up from the stained sofa, little Leo wailing in her arms. "Mummy?! Did you get them charged?!"

Veronica slammed the phones and the small tablet onto the table. Susan snatched hers and Leo's tablet immediately, but the tablet screen flashed a red battery icon and shut down before a single game could load. Leo let out a fresh, ear-splitting scream of frustration.

"What is this?!" Susan shrieked, glaring at her mother in total disbelief as she shook the dead tablet. "It’s dead! Leo can't even play his games to stop crying! It didn't even charge up to five percent! What were you doing down there?!"

Andrea stood up from the armchair, his face pale as he picked up his own device. His slick palm almost slipped off the sweat-dampened casing as the screen flickered weakly: **2%**. Before his thumb could even navigate to the contacts, the number glitched and dropped straight down to **1%**.

He turned a sharp, furious glare on Veronica. "Mummy, what is the meaning of this? You were gone for fifteen minutes and bring back devices on one percent?! How are we supposed to conduct business with this?!"

"Do not raise your voice at me!" Veronica screamed, her voice cracking into a frantic, unhinged screech as tears of rage cut through her ruined makeup. "Do you know what I endured in that woman's house?! She sat there in her cool parlor and mocked me to my face! She said the news is everywhere! She said Vanessa bought the entire estate across the road in her maiden name—*Axerold*—and that everyone knows she served us an eviction notice and threw us out! I couldn't stand there and take those insults for another second!"

"You couldn't stand the insults?!" Susan nagged back furiously, throwing her hands in the air over Leo's deafening cries. "So you walked out and left us with dead devices?! Now we have no power, no working phones, a screaming child, and the whole neighborhood is laughing at us!"

"Enough!" Veronica barked, turning on her daughter before swinging her frantic gaze back to Andrea. "We are done sitting in this oven listening to low-class gossips! Look out that window, Andrea! We are marching across that highway right now! We are going straight to those estate gates, pushing past those guards, and confronting Vanessa face-to-face!"

"No," Andrea said coldly, his voice cutting through his mother's hysteria.

Veronica blinked, stunned. "What do you mean, no?!"

Andrea held up his phone, where the battery indicator hummed on that fragile, solitary **1%**. A dark, arrogant smirk spread across his face as his toxic pride completely reasserted control.

"We aren't going to sweat on the asphalt like beggars walking to her gate," Andrea sneered, his slick palm gripping the casing as his pride flared into full-blown delusion. "She registered it under *Axerold* to play a high-stakes power game and force me to chase her. She wants me to run over there so she can feel important."

He tapped Vanessa's contact on his screen, his thumb resting over the dial icon.

"I have one percent left. I will call her right now," Andrea declared, his voice dropping into a flat, terrifyingly calm cadence as he straightened his creased linen collar. "And when she answers, I will command her to bring the estate keys directly over to this apartment, drop to her knees, and hand them over like a submissive wife."