His mother caught my wrist before I could stand.
“Anna, wait.”
“Who is it, Ruth?”
The knocking came again—three slow, measured taps.
A man’s voice followed.
“Anna?
It’s Gavin.
We need to discuss Daniel’s estate.”
Daniel’s older brother had not called me once since the f*neral.
Now he stood outside before his brother’s flowers had begun to fade.
Ruth moved between me and the door.
“Don’t give him the letter or the key.”
“You knew he was coming?”
“I knew he would come eventually.”
I opened the door with the chain still fastened.
Gavin held a bunch of white lilies in one hand and a leather folder in the other.
“I’m sorry to arrive without warning,” he said.
“May I come in?”
“No.”
His eyes dropped to the envelope on the sofa.
“Ruth gave it to you, then.”
“You came here for Daniel’s letter?”
“I came to prevent another mistake.”
Ruth pulled the door wider.
“The mistake was trusting you.”
Gavin’s polite smile disappeared.
“Careful, Mum.”
“No.
You be careful.”
Sophie began crying in her bassinet.
I picked her up, and Gavin stared at her as if he had forgotten his niece existed.
“What does this have to do with the Miller house?” I asked.
“The house was bought with money from Hale and Sons,” he said.
“Daniel had no authority to use company funds.”
Ruth stepped forward.
“That money was Daniel’s share of the business.”
“That is not what the accounts show.”
He opened the folder and slid a document through the gap in the door.
Across the top were the words NOTICE OF DISPUTED OWNERSHIP.
“You’re trying to take my daughter’s home?”
“I’m protecting the company our father built.”
“Four days after your brother’s f*neral?”
“I didn’t choose the timing.
Daniel created this mess.”
Ruth snatched the paper from my hand.
“You told Daniel you’d destroy the duplicate key.”
Gavin glanced at her.
“He told you about that?”
“He told me enough.”
“Not everything, apparently.”
He reached into his coat and held up a silver key.
“Daniel gave me access because I supervised the repairs.
Whatever sentimental promises he made, the property is tied to the company.”
“Then why did he warn me about you in a video?”
For the first time, Gavin’s face changed.
“What video?”
“The one he made for Anna,” Ruth said.
“The one you were never supposed to see.”
Gavin pushed the lilies against the door.
“Listen to me, Anna.
Daniel was taking strong medication when he made those recordings.
If you challenge me, every private detail of his final months will become part of a court file.”
“You would do that to your own brother?”
“I would do what is necessary.”
He offered me the leather folder.
“Sign the acknowledgment.
I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars and six months’ rent.
You and Sophie can move on without a public fight.”
I looked down at my daughter’s face.
“Daniel bought her a home, and you’re offering me rent?”
“You don’t know what Daniel did.”
“And you don’t know what he left me.”
I shut the door.
Gavin stopped it with the toe of his shoe.
“You have until Friday,” he said.
“After that, the house belongs to someone else.”
Ruth forced the door against his foot.
“Get out, Gavin.”
He withdrew his shoe and looked straight at me.
“When that house is opened, Anna, you may not like the man you find inside it.”
I locked the door.
My phone rang before Gavin reached his car.
A security alert flashed across the screen from an address I had never seen before: MILLER HOUSE—FRONT DOOR OPEN.
Ruth stared at the message.
“If Gavin is standing outside,” she whispered, “then someone else has his key.”
next for part 4
