Chapter 2 - The Paper Trail
The screen glowed against the dim lighting of the dining room. I looked past the swelling in my left eye and read the words my mother had typed:
*Avery, start recording when Grant walks over to the buffet. Capture her face when he calls her out. If the family sees her stand up to defend herself, your uncle won't have any choice but to sign the conservatorship over to me before the trust payout next week.*
My breath caught in my chest, sharp and agonizing against my bruised ribs. The room around me felt muffled, like I was sinking underwater.
Eleven minutes before Grant gripped the handles of my wheelchair, before he screamed at me to get up, before he rammed my body into the solid mahogany edge of the buffet table—my mother had orchestrated it. It wasn't an impulsive outburst born from Grant’s notorious temper. It was a planned ambush. A staged performance meant to catch me “faking” my paralysis so they could seize control of the trust fund established after the semi-truck collision that had crushed my lower spine three years ago.
"Maya, don't look at that," Mom hissed, her voice dropping into that poisoned, sweet whisper she used whenever she was cornered. She lunged forward, her manicured nails reaching to snatch Avery’s phone.
Avery jerked back instantly. "Don't touch me, Aunt Eleanor!"
"Give me the phone, you ungrateful little brat!" Eleanor snapped, dropping all pretense of gentility. Several relatives near the archway gasped. Eleanor had spent decades curating the image of the stoic, saintly mother sacrificing everything for her disabled daughter. That porcelain mask cracked right down the middle.
"Keep your hands off her," I said. My voice was raspy, thick with blood running into the corner of my mouth, but the authority in it stopped my mother cold. "Avery, back up toward the kitchen door. Stay on with the dispatcher."
"They're two minutes out," Avery called back, her voice shaking but resolute. "Police are en route too. I told them assault and battery with a deadly weapon."
Grant let out a sharp, hysterical bark of laughter, pacing near the shattered punch bowl. "Assault? Are you out of your mind? Mom, tell her! I was joking around! We were playing! Maya slipped because she's clumsy!"
"Shut up, Grant," Uncle Robert's voice boomed from the back of the room. He stepped forward, his eyes darting between my crumpled form on the floor, the overturned titanium chair, and the red smear drying on the mahogany table. Uncle Robert was Eleanor's older brother, the current trustee of Grandfather’s estate. "Nobody touches Maya until the medics arrive. And Grant—you take one more step toward Avery, and I will knock you through that wall."
The wail of sirens cut through the suburban silence, growing louder and more insistent until the red and blue flashing lights painted the ceiling through the front blinds.
Mom spun toward the front hallway, smoothing her cardigan with frantic hands. "Everyone just calm down. This is a family matter. We handle this inside the house. When the officers come in, I’ll explain. It was an unfortunate misunderstanding. Maya has always been dramatic—"
The front door banged open. Two paramedics carrying trauma bags rushed into the foyer, flanked by two uniformed police officers.
May you like
"Where is the patient?" the lead paramedic demanded.
"Right here," Avery yelled from the kitchen doorway, pointing her phone at my brother. "And that's the man who assaulted her."
