Chapter 1: The Secret Benefactor
I parked my car on the cracked concrete of the driveway, the engine idling for a moment before I killed the ignition. I gripped the steering wheel, taking a deep, steadying breath. Through the windshield, the house looked the same as it always had: a sprawling, two-story suburban home with peeling beige siding and a lawn that was fighting a losing war against crabgrass.
To the neighbors, it was just the Miller residence. To my parents, it was their castle, the symbol of their middle-class status. But to the bank, three months ago, it had been a bad asset.
A foreclosure waiting to happen. My father, Frank, had gambled away his retirement fund on bad stocks. My mother, Linda, had refused to cut back on her lifestyle.
They had stopped paying the mortgage six months ago. The foreclosure notice had been nailed to the door in bright orange paper. They didn’t know that I had seen it.
They didn’t know that I, the “disappointment” of the family, the daughter they mocked for working too hard and having no husband, had quietly formed an LLC called Phoenix Holdings. They didn’t know I had approached the bank and bought their debt for pennies on the dollar. Technically, legally, and absolutely: I owned the roof over their heads.
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