Derek, who has been silent, suddenly lunges forward.
“But my servers! We moved them. The temperature is perfect!”
“Get them off the sidewalk,” the officer orders. “If they’re not gone in ten minutes, I’m calling a tow truck for the vehicles and I’m arresting all three of you.”
The locksmith, realizing he has been inches away from committing a felony, packs his drill into his bag with lightning speed.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he mutters to me, not making eye contact, and practically runs to his van.
I stand in the doorway, watching them unravel.
The power dynamic has shifted so violently that the air feels charged.
Graham looks at me. For the first time in my life, he doesn’t look at me with indifference or disappointment. He looks at me with hate.
He takes a step toward me. The officer moves to intercept, but Graham stops.
“You would do this to your family?” Graham hisses. “On Christmas? You would hide behind a lawyer and a trust just to keep your brother from getting back on his feet?”
I look him dead in the eye.
“I’m not hiding, Graham,” I say. “I’m evicting. Talk to my lawyer.” I add, echoing the phrase he has used on his own business partners a thousand times.
Graham stares at me for a long moment. Then he spits on the stone step at my feet.
“Let’s go,” he says to Marilyn.
They retreat.
It is a chaotic, angry retreat. Derek is cursing, shoving the heavy server racks back into the trunk of the SUV, scratching the paint in his haste. Marilyn is weeping loudly, asking the empty air what she has done to deserve such a cruel child. Graham is on his phone, likely yelling at his own lawyer, who is probably telling him exactly what Grant has just said.
I watch them until the last door slams. I watch the tail lights flare red as they reverse down the drive.
The officer waits until they are through the gate before he gives me a curt nod and follows them out.
I am alone.
I let out a breath I feel like I have been holding for twenty years. My knees feel weak. I lean against the door frame, closing my eyes.
“I did it,” I whisper.
Grant is still on the phone.
“Are they gone?”
“Yes,” I say. “They’re gone.”
“Good,” Grant says. “I’ll draft a cease-and-desist order tonight and have it served to their home address tomorrow morning. Lock the door, Clare, and check the perimeter.”
I hang up.
I push the heavy door shut and throw the deadbolt. The sound of the lock clicking into place is the most satisfying sound I have ever heard.
I turn to walk back into the main hall—and then the lights go out.
It isn’t just a flicker. It is a hard, instant death of every bulb in the house. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen dies. The security panel by the door goes dark. The boiler in the basement groans and falls silent.
Total, absolute darkness.
I stand frozen in the pitch-black foyer. The silence is sudden and heavy.
I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight. The beam cuts through the dusty air.
I walk to the window. Outside, down at the edge of the property where the main utility pole stands, I see the tail lights of the second SUV—Derek’s SUV—pausing for just a second before speeding away.
I know exactly what has happened.
Derek hasn’t just been looking at the power lines earlier. He has been casing them. He knows where the external disconnect is. On his way out, in a fit of petty, vindictive rage, he has pulled the main breaker. Or worse, he has smashed the box.
I walk to the thermostat. The display is blank. The house, built of stone and vast empty spaces, is already beginning to hold the chill.
The heat is gone. The security cameras are down. The electric gate is frozen in the open position.
I am alone in a 4,000-square-foot manor in the middle of a snowstorm with no heat, no light, and the front gate wide open to the world.
I wrap my coat tighter around myself. I can feel the cold seeping up through the floorboards.
It feels familiar.
It feels like every Christmas Eve I have spent in my apartment, staring at a phone that never rang.
It feels like the coldness of their dining room when they looked right through me.
They couldn’t stay, so they made sure I couldn’t stay comfortably either. They wanted to punish me. They wanted me to freeze. They wanted me to be scared in the dark so I would come crawling back to them, begging for forgiveness, begging to be let back into the warmth of their toxic circle.
I shine the flashlight on my breath, which is already misting in the air.
I do not call an electrician. It is Christmas Eve. No one will come.
I do not cry.
I walk into the library. I find the candles I bought—thick, heavy pillars of beeswax.
I light them one by one. The room fills with flickering, dancing shadows.
I go to the fireplace. I stack the dry oak logs I had prepared. I strike a match and watch the kindling catch. The fire roars to life, casting a golden glow over the leather books and the dark wood paneling.
It is primitive. It is cold.
But it is mine.
I sit down at the desk. My laptop has four hours of battery life left. I tether it to my phone’s hotspot.
I open the folder I created earlier: INCIDENT DEC 23. I look at the files—the video of the locksmith, the photo of the forged lease, the recording of Graham claiming ownership.
They think this is over because they have left. They think cutting the power is the final word, a petty vandalism to show they still have power over me.
They are wrong.
I create a new subfolder. I name it UTILITY SABOTAGE.
I type a note to Grant:
