Part 2: My parents refused to pay for my college tuition, saying I should be "independent," but they offered to cover all of my sister's expenses.

Two weeks later, the social circles of the city were treated to the final, spectacular implosion of Patrice and Arthur’s house of cards.

The county sheriff’s department arrived at their four-acre estate in Greenwich at ten o’clock on a brisk Tuesday morning. Because Arthur had failed to post the emergency bond required to stay the foreclosure action, the lenders exercised their right of immediate possession.

A prominent local lifestyle blogger—who had previously been paid by Patrice to chronicle Belle’s extravagant wedding preparations—was tipped off by the neighbors and live-streamed the entire eviction.

Sarah and I watched the stream from our kitchen island in Manhattan while eating breakfast.

On the screen, two moving contractors were carrying out the massive gilded mirrors, the imported Italian dining table, and rack after rack of Belle’s designer dresses, depositing them onto the damp autumn lawn.

Patrice was in hysterics, screaming at the sheriff’s deputies, waving a leather-bound family Bible in the air and claiming that her civil rights were being violated. Arthur sat on an overturned shipping crate by the mailbox, his face buried in his hands, completely unresponsive to the neighbors who were watching the spectacle from their driveways with vindictive satisfaction.

Then, Belle appeared on camera.

She wasn't wearing her makeup. She had on an oversized sweat-suit, her eyes puffy and wild. She lunged toward the blogger’s phone camera, swatting at the lens.

“Stop filming us!” Belle screamed, her voice cracking into static over the phone’s microphone. “This is a temporary administrative error! My brother is Lucas Vance! He’s the CEO of Vance Capital! He’s going to buy this entire company and fire every single one of you! Lucas will fix this!”

Sarah set her coffee mug down with a soft click, shaking her head. “Even now. Even while standing in the ruins of everything she broke, she still thinks you belong to her.”

“She doesn't know how to survive without a host,” I said, watching my sister make a complete fool of herself on a public broadcast that had already garnered forty thousand live viewers. “For her whole life, other people’s blood was her fuel. Now she has to feed herself.”

My phone buzzed on the counter. It was a text from an unknown number.

I opened it.

*Lucas. It’s Belle. Please. They’re taking everything. Dad is having chest pains. Mom won't stop crying. We have nowhere to sleep tonight. The hotels won't take our cards. Just give us five hundred thousand dollars. That’s nothing to you. You spend that on your vacations. If you ever loved me as a sister, help us.*

I looked at the message for a long time.

I thought about the night of my high school graduation. I had won the state award for mathematics, and I had saved up twenty dollars to buy a cheap sheet cake from the grocery store so we could celebrate together. When I brought it home, Belle had sneered at it, saying cheap store-bought frosting gave her a headache, and Patrice had thrown the cake into the garbage disposal so it wouldn't ‘attract ants.’

I didn't reply with anger. I didn't reply with venom.