They Threw Us in the Snow. I Owned Everything. Chapter 04

December 27th, 7:00 a.m.: a locksmith changed every lock on the lake house, because the house is mine.

7:30 a.m.: Silver Birch Holdings froze every account at Mercer Development.

9:00 a.m.: a tow truck hauled Sloane’s white Range Rover out of the company garage. Bought with company money. My money.

11:15 a.m.: Diane’s credit card declined at the country club brunch. In front of her entire bridge club.

12:02 p.m.: Grant’s phone rang. It was his bank.

At 12:03, mine started exploding.

Grant. Grant. Diane. Grant. Unknown number – Sloane. Grant. Diane.

I watched the screen light up and go dark, light up and go dark, while Poppy and I built a gingerbread house on the floor of our suite. She was very serious about the gumdrops.

“Mommy, your phone is having a tantrum.”

“It sure is, baby.”

Forty-seven missed calls by 2 p.m. Then the texts.

Grant: “Hannah WHAT is going on?? The company accounts are FROZEN. Who is Silver Birch and why are they calling an emergency board meeting??”

Diane: “There are strange men changing the locks on MY HOUSE. I am standing in the snow in my robe.

CALL ME.”

Grant: “Sloane’s car got towed in front of the whole office. She’s crying. Fix this NOW.”

Diane: “You little nobody. I’m calling the police.”

The police came. Diane called them on herself, essentially. When the officer asked for the deed, she said her son owned the house. The officer pulled the records on his tablet and read the owner’s name out loud.

Hannah Rose Mercer, Trustee.

I know this because the locksmith’s wife is Priya’s cousin, and she sent me a video. Diane, in a pink bathrobe and Ugg boots, screaming at a very patient police officer while snow fell on her blowout.

I watched it three times. I’m not proud of that.

Okay, I’m a little proud.

Here’s what nobody in that family ever bothered to ask in eight years.

The lake house was bought by my mother’s trust two years before I even met Grant. When Diane’s own house went into foreclosure five years ago, I quietly let her move in. Grant told her he’d bought it for her. I let him. I thought it was sweet.

Mercer Development exists because of a two-million-dollar investment from Silver Birch Holdings. Seventy percent ownership. Grant signed the shareholder agreement himself, in my kitchen, while I made him a grilled cheese. He said, “Babe, it’s just boring paperwork. Where do I sign?”

He signed on page nine. Right under the clause that lets the majority investor remove the CEO for cause.

And the tower downtown where Grant has his corner office with the view he loves to brag about? There’s a

private loan on it. It’s held by a lender called Rose Street Capital.

Named after my grandmother.

The same grandmother whose ring was currently on Sloane’s finger.

At 4 p.m., Poppy fell asleep with gumdrop sugar on her cheek, and I finally sat down and breathed.

That’s when the hotel front desk called.

“Mrs. Mercer? I’m so sorry to bother you. There’s a man and an older woman in the lobby demanding to see you. The woman is – well, she’s shouting. She says you stole her home on Christmas. A crowd is forming. Should we call security?”

I looked at my sleeping daughter. The crayon letter to Santa was still on the nightstand.

PLEASE JUST MAKE GRAMMY LIKE ME AGAN.

I stood up, brushed the gingerbread crumbs off my sweater, and smiled.

“No,” I said. “Don’t call security yet. I’ll come down.”

They’d driven all the way here.

It would be rude not to give them the bill in person.