Chapter 4: B: Silence and Eviction

👉 Previous Decision: You chose Option 4A-2 – Reject Chloe’s approach, fearing she is a spy sent by Marcus.

Chloe Zhang stood there, her eyes wide and pleading, waiting for my response. The suspicion gnawed at me. Marcus Kincaid was a known schemer, and sending his own assistant felt like a classic trap. I couldn’t risk it.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice low and firm. “I don’t know you. And I don’t talk to Marcus Kincaid’s people.”

Chloe’s face fell. Her shoulders slumped, and the anxious energy drained from her. She stared at me for another beat, then simply turned and walked away, disappearing into the lunchtime crowd. I watched her go, a small pang of uncertainty in my chest, but I quickly dismissed it. Better safe than sorry.

I finished my tuna melt, the taste now somewhat bland. I’d avoided a potential snare, but I was no closer to understanding Harold Hobbs or the probate freeze.

The next morning, a process server arrived at my small rental apartment. He handed me an envelope. Inside was an eviction notice. Marcus Kincaid had obtained a court order, based on forged lien documents, asserting ownership rights to Beatrice’s Bel-Air property. The notice gave me forty-eight hours to vacate the premises, citing an immediate need for “estate preservation” and accusing me of “unauthorized occupancy.”

Samuel Ellis was furious. “This is outrageous, Arthur!” he exclaimed over the phone. “He’s fabricating claims of liens against the property to force your removal. But without any insider information on Hobbs, or anything substantial to counter his claims quickly, fighting this will take weeks in court.”

Weeks I didn’t have. Marcus was moving swiftly, leveraging the freeze order and my lack of concrete evidence to assert control. Without Chloe’s potential insights, I had no immediate counter-argument, no way to prove Marcus’s manipulation was behind Hobbs’s actions or the forged documents.

I packed my few belongings into two worn suitcases, feeling the bitter sting of defeat. The Bel-Air estate, the house where I had lived and worked for two decades, was now officially Marcus’s domain. My decision to reject Chloe, fueled by caution, had left me defenseless.