Chapter 4 - The Eviction of Parasites
The following Monday, the pressure on the Bennett family intensified. Grant, Diane, Ryan, and Brooke had been living in a high-end luxury suburban house in Cherry Creek—a property they constantly claimed was part of the "Bennett Family Estate."
What they had conveniently forgotten—or chosen to ignore—was that the title to that house belonged to a real estate holding company I had acquired four years ago as an investment property. When Ryan and I married, I permitted his parents to reside there under a formal lease agreement, with rent heavily subsidized by my personal funds. In fact, Grant hadn't paid a single dollar in rent for the past eighteen months, claiming his capital was "tied up in development ventures."
At 10:00 AM, Arthur filed an emergency eviction motion based on unpaid rent totaling $108,000, along with a notice of immediate breach of lease terms due to criminal activity originating from the tenants.
At the same time, I took action regarding Brooke. My sister-in-law had been working as an entry-level marketing coordinator at Apex CyberSolutions—a job she had obtained entirely because I had recommended her to our human resources department. Over the past year, Brooke had spent more time posting lifestyle videos on social media from her office desk than doing actual work, relying on my executive position to shield her from termination.
I called the HR Director directly.
"Claire, how are you holding up?" Sarah, the HR Vice President, asked with genuine concern. "We saw the news reports over the weekend. Everyone at the corporate office is horrified."
"I'm recovering, Sarah. Thank you," I replied. "I'm calling to clarify a professional matter. Brooke Bennett’s employment status."
"She’s currently late for her shift again today," Sarah noted dryly. "We’ve tolerated her performance issues only out of respect for you, Claire."
"Don't tolerate them for another second," I said clearly. "Conduct a full audit of her corporate credit card usage and time logs. If you find discrepancies, follow company policy without leniency."
An hour later, HR initiated an immediate audit. They uncovered that Brooke had been expensing personal spa appointments, luxury shopping trips, and expensive dinners to the company’s client entertainment account, amounting to over $32,000 in fraudulent charges over six months. When Brooke finally strolled into the office at noon, she was immediately escorted to a private room by security, handed a termination notice, and informed that the company was filing criminal embezzlement charges unless the funds were repaid immediately.
Brooke’s frantic calls to Ryan and Grant went unanswered, as both men were currently sitting in an interrogation room at the Denver Police Department with their criminal defense attorneys.
By 4:00 PM, the court granted the expedited eviction order for the Cherry Creek house. Sheriff's deputies posted the execution notice on the front door, giving the family forty-eight hours to vacate the property entirely.
That evening, Diane Bennett managed to bypass my phone block by using a public payphone near the courthouse. I answered, expecting a confrontation.
"Claire! You have to stop this monster behavior!" Diane shrieked, her voice shaking with panicked rage. "Grant is in a holding cell! Ryan is being processed for felony fraud! Brooke was fired and is threatening to sue us! Where are we supposed to live?!"
"That is no longer my concern, Diane," I said coolly.
"We are your family!" she screamed. "You are carrying my grandchild! How can you be so heartless over a minor argument at dinner?!"
"A cigarette burn is not an argument, Diane. It is assault," I replied, my voice chillingly steady. "And stealing $750,000 from a child's trust is not a family misunderstanding. It is a crime. You sat at my table, drank my wine, lived in my house, and watched your husband burn me while your son pinned me down. You didn't lift a finger to stop it."
"You drove us to this!" Diane wept, switching instantly from anger to pathetic pleading. "Grant was under so much financial stress! His developers were threatening him! Ryan was just trying to help his father! Please, Claire, drop the charges. We will move out quietly. We will give the money back!"
"The money is already frozen by the court," I said. "And the state is prosecuting the criminal assault charges, not me. I couldn't drop them even if I wanted to—which I don't."
"You're destroying us!"
May you like
"No," I corrected her. "You destroyed yourselves the moment you mistook my generosity for weakness. You have forty-eight hours to clear your things out of my Cherry Creek house. Anything left behind will be sold at auction to recoup your unpaid rent."
I hung up the phone and signaled to my assistant to change my personal number. The parasites were finally being stripped away, one by one.
