Chapter 4

“There are three hundred thousand in that card and another hundred-and-fifty-thousand in my savings account. That’s enough to cover the fine.”

Then, I fixed an iron look at Emilia and said aloud, “We’re not selling the house, I’ll pay the fine! All Leroy needs to do is focus on his recovery. I won’t have him pay even a single cent!”

Emilia turned deathly pale in an instant while her eyes widened in panic. She began to dart her eyes around the room frantically.

If I paid off the fine, her meticulous plan to sell the house and take all the money for herself would fall apart.

With that, she turned to Leroy and started to gesture exaggeratedly in sign language again. She was a masterful actor and even faked tears so she would come across as being the victim in this situation.

At first, all Leroy did was stare at the items I set on the table with a flicker of doubt in his eyes. After several seconds of Emilia speaking to him using sign language, his body language changed, and he became animated.

Then, his eyes reddened while he shot up and grabbed the bank statements. Without warning, he smacked them against my forehead.

The documents struck me without warning. A spike of pain went through me, and my vision began to blur.

I endured the dizziness and tried to reach for his arm. “Leroy, calm down! Let me write to you, you have to stop believing her lies!”

Emilia immediately stepped between us and shoved me away.

“Leah, that's enough! Must you trample on his dignity just because you have some money? Get out, stop instigating him!”

The real estate agent got up and tried to mediate the situation.

“Hey now, everyone, let’s calm down. Since the homeowner has agreed to sell the house to pay off his debts, we’re approaching the final part of the process. All he needs to do is cooperate and sign the documents.”

Upon hearing the cue, Emilia immediately grabbed a pen and shoved it into Leroy's hand. With that, she brazenly guided his fingers, forcing him to sign the documents without so much as uttering a word.

“Alright, all done!”

With that, she quickly gathered all the documents and stuffed them into her bag while dragging a visibly shaken Leroy out of the room.

In the instant when he walked past me, I saw what was a burning hatred for me in his eyes.

He shoved me by my shoulder before slamming the door shut so hard that the entire room shook.

The agent and I were the only ones who remained in the meeting room. The air was heavy with tension.

I glanced down at the corner of the table and found a scrap of paper which Emilia had carelessly left behind in her rush. It was the confirmation receipt for a discreetly arranged mortgage.

While I was gathering the shredded paper, my phone rang.

It was a long text from Rina. The contents struck me with the weight of a revelation.

[Oh my god, Leah! Emilia completely twisted what you were saying in her sign language! She’s not even talking about the job you recommended. She was telling your brother that you think he’s useless and that he would only embarrass you if he worked at your company!]

[She went on telling him about how you refused to help him with the debt and that all you want is to force him out of the picture so you can have the house to yourself! She then convinced him to hand over the house to her mother and distance himself from your influence.]

My fingers were shaking when I read the text. The paper slipped from my grip and fluttered to the ground.

This explained the past year of hostility and resentment my brother projected toward me. It was all a result of Emilia's perfectly laid-out ploys to gain favor in his eyes over the past months. Gradually, it all unraveled into a sinister scheme.

From the beginning, she had been discreetly spinning a web of lies to drive a wedge between my brother and me. The only thing she was after was his property.

That was when I noticed the letters on the torn receipt: [Mortgage valuation: $2,800,000. Loan repayment: $300,000]

I felt a chill run down my spine. It was never about helping Leroy repay his debts. It was a blatant scam targeting the deaf and mute who were vulnerable.

By this point, Emilia already had the power of attorney signed by Leroy and could submit the paperwork at any time to the relevant department to finalize the sale.

All of our relatives had been deceived by her, and my brother had been brainwashed to the point where he saw me as his mortal enemy. There was not a sliver of chance I could expose her scheme at this point even if I knew sign language.

I gripped my phone so tightly that my knuckles were turning white. That was when I drew up an impeccable plan in my mind.

At this point, even if I managed to deliver a compelling explanation in sign language, it would not hold up in court. Emilia could very well reason that I was falsifying information.

To expose her lies, I would need to find a court-certified professional sign language interpreter to publicly denounce her and expose her lies.

This was no longer only about saving the house. I had to bring all the evidence of Emilia and her mother’s nefarious exploitation of the disabled to light.