My Mom And Dad Gave My Brother A Luxury Mansion And Left Me… An Empty Parking Lot. “You Can Make It Work,” They Joked. I Built A Business Anyway.

My mom stepped out first, but the light, floaty energy she’d brought the last time was gone. Her hair was pulled back in a messy knot, and there were worry lines on her forehead I’d never seen. My dad followed, not in his golf course uniform, but in an old polo that had lost its shape.

They didn’t look like the people who had toasted to a mansion. They looked like people who had moved from one fire to another and finally run out of hoses. “Natalie,” my mom said, walking up to me with her arms crossed tight over her chest like she was keeping herself from shaking.

“We need to talk privately.”

I led them into the tiny office behind the cafe, squeezing past the filing cabinet and closing the door so customers wouldn’t hear. My dad stayed standing, scanning the cluttered shelves like he was already calculating what everything was worth. My mom sat, but she didn’t waste time.

“The company is in trouble,” she said. “Real trouble.”

They laid it out in clipped, miserable pieces. Interest rates had gone up.

Buyers had backed out of pre-sales. A couple of projects Brandon had pitched as can’t miss had gone sideways, burning through cash they didn’t have. Lenders had been patient at first, but patience has an expiration date when six figure payments are on the line.

They were carrying more debt than they could service. And banks were starting to circle the mansion the way vultures circle a highway accident. “We’ve always bounced back before,” my dad said, jaw clenched, “but this time the timing is bad.

The market is tight, and we have too many things half finishedish. Me?”

My mom leaned forward, her voice softening like she was finally getting to the real point. “We’re short about 300,000,” she said.

“That would get the most critical loans current and keep the company afloat while we restructure. We’re talking to other people, of course, but it made sense to come to family first, especially family who’s doing well.”

She said that last part while looking pointedly at the spreadsheet taped to the wall behind me, the one tracking charger usage and cafe sales. I took a breath, feeling that familiar squeeze in my chest.

“You want me to give you $300,000?” I said slowly, just to hear how it sounded out loud. “We want to borrow it,” my dad snapped, as if the wording made all the difference. “With interest.

We’re not asking for charity.”

My mom jumped back in before I could answer. “Think of it as investing in your own inheritance,” she said. “If the company goes under, everything we built, everything Brandon has been working on, it all disappears.

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