The memory of her smug expression made my jaw tighten. I picked up the phone and called my closest friend, Haley. We’d survived college together, bonded by shared traumas and late-night coffees at the bar.
“Tell me you didn’t give them a dime,” she asked as soon as she answered.
“Not a dime,” I replied, staring at the Fort Worth skyline. “They demanded twenty thousand dollars for her last tuition payment. Mom used the poverty excuse, and then immediately insulted my company.”
Haley burst into a high-pitched, incredulous laugh. “Alysia, you’re the CEO of an eight-figure global company. They’ve mocked you for a decade because recognizing your self-built empire would completely shatter their illusion. Catalina is their artificial star. You were supposed to be the backup generator.”
“They’re acting strange, Haley. They’re desperate. Dad practically grilled me over dinner a few months ago about the structure of my LLC. He asked me if I had any partners, how my liabilities were protected.”
“It’s not just curiosity,” Haley warned me, lowering her voice. “It’s reconnaissance. You need to get everything under control.”
She was right. The Thompson family didn’t consider me a daughter; I was a backup plan. I hung up and scrolled through my phone until I found Sloan, my incredibly smart financial advisor. I’d hired her five years earlier precisely because I knew Dad’s financial “advice” was purely self-serving.
“Sloan, it’s Alysia,” I said when she answered. “I need a huge favor. I need you to do a thorough and discreet investigation into my parents. Mortgages, private loans, mortgages, everything. And get every public academic record you can find on Catalina.”
“Consider it done,” Sloan replied casually. “Is this about the pressure campaign you told me about?”
“Yes. They’re seeking liquidity, and I fear they’re sinking.”
“I’ll email you a preliminary dossier by tomorrow evening. Be on the lookout, Alysia.”
I spent the next twenty-four hours pacing the hardwood floors, a chill of anxiety gripping my stomach. What if the debt was greater than an unpaid mortgage payment? What if they’d used up all their available capital? When Sloan’s email finally broke the silence of my apartment, the subject line read simply: Urgent: Financial Anomalies.
Chapter 3: The Architecture of Deception
My fingers trembled slightly as I clicked on the encrypted PDF attachment. The blue light from the monitor cast long, eerie shadows across my desk. I skipped the summary and dove straight into the raw, unfiltered data. What I discovered wasn’t just a financial leak; it was a catastrophic structural collapse.
First point: My parents had quietly taken out a second mortgage on their Arlington home twenty-four months earlier. But it wasn’t a regular bank loan. They’d turned to an unscrupulous private lender. The interest rate was a shocking 12 percent.
Second point: Three more unsecured personal loans followed in quick succession. The total outstanding debt, completely unsecured from the original mortgage, hovered at a staggering $500,000.
My chest tightened. Half a million dollars. But the next line made my blood run cold.
Catalina Thompson is listed as the primary co-signer on all three personal loans, having explicitly used her projected future medical earnings as collateral.
They had chained themselves to a sinking ship, betting their very survival on Catalina’s future salary. But the nasty surprises didn’t end there. I scrolled to the section dedicated to my father’s impeccable and untouchable career.
Eric Thompson: Formal disciplinary reprimand issued by FINRA. License quietly suspended indefinitely due to multiple infractions, including advising elderly clients on high-risk, unsuitable bonds, which led to catastrophic portfolio failures.
A heavy, sickening realization washed over me. My arrogant, cautious father—the man who had mocked my “unstable” tech company—was a disgraced con man. He had drained his clients dry, and when his income dried up, he had turned Catalina into his last desperate gamble. The twenty thousand dollars Mom begged me for had absolutely nothing to do with Yale tuition. It was a desperate palliative to cover the exorbitant monthly interest and keep the creditors at bay for another thirty days.
