The Unfamiliar Number That Buzzed My Phone Held the One Secret My Stepmother Feared Most

I stared at the unknown number, my thumb hovering. The message read only one line. This is Gregory, your father’s attorney. We need to speak before Marguerite does something you cannot undo. My stomach dropped. My father had a separate lawyer, one I had never met, and he was reaching out to warn me on the very night my stepmother declared war.

I called immediately. Gregory answered on the first ring, his voice low and careful, as if someone might be listening nearby. He told me that the transfer Marguerite bragged about, the one where my father supposedly gave her the beach house last month, had never been legally possible. And then he told me why, and it was a truth that unraveled everything Marguerite believed she owned.

THE STORY CONTINUES ON THE NEXT PAGE… 👇👇👇


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Aria Lexicon is the pen name of the writer and editor behind The Daily Signal, a site for original short fiction about families, grudges, awkward neighbors and the small decisions that turn into big ones. Every story is invented; every character is made up. When She isn't writing, She's reading other people's stories and trying to figure out why the good ones work.

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