The Landlord’s Game of Control

The Landlord's Game of Control

Gavin

5.0
Comment(s)
3
View
13
Chapters

Mr. Henderson' s smile, wide and greasy, never reached his eyes. "What is it now, Sarah?" he' d asked, after ignoring my pleas for two weeks to fix the heater in my drafty apartment. He dismissed the strange, sweet smell coming from the vents as just an "old building" problem, scoffing that "You women are always worried about something." But the real insult came when my 72-year-old mother, who' d arrived for the holidays, collapsed, pale and confused, her words slurring, from what I suspected was that very smell. "She' s probably faking it to get some attention," Henderson sneered when I banged on his door in a panic, calling for an ambulance. "You' re a single mom, right? Always struggling. Maybe this is some kind of scheme to get a discount on your rent. A sick old mother, a dangerous apartment. It' s a classic." His cruelty hit me like a physical blow, leaving me reeling and powerless as paramedics wheeled my barely conscious mother from our apartment, declaring the CO levels "off the charts" and the place a "death trap." My mother was fighting for her life in the ICU, while Henderson was on the phone, his voice warm and accommodating, promising to immediately fix a torn window screen for "my best tenant," Dave. "Are you serious?" I whispered, trembling with fury. "You' re going to fix his window screen right now, but you couldn' t be bothered to fix the heater that almost killed my mother?" His voice dropped, menacing. "That\'s none of your business. Dave is a model tenant. He understands how things work. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from him." He hung up, confident in his power over "hysterical women." But as my mother' s doctor grimly told me she was being moved to the ICU, and I recalled every ignored complaint, every dismissal, every woman Henderson had mocked and endangered, the helplessness burned away, replaced by a roaring, determined rage. He thought I was just an emotional woman. He was about to find out just how hysterical I could be.

Introduction

Mr. Henderson' s smile, wide and greasy, never reached his eyes.

"What is it now, Sarah?" he' d asked, after ignoring my pleas for two weeks to fix the heater in my drafty apartment.

He dismissed the strange, sweet smell coming from the vents as just an "old building" problem, scoffing that "You women are always worried about something."

But the real insult came when my 72-year-old mother, who' d arrived for the holidays, collapsed, pale and confused, her words slurring, from what I suspected was that very smell.

"She' s probably faking it to get some attention," Henderson sneered when I banged on his door in a panic, calling for an ambulance. "You' re a single mom, right? Always struggling. Maybe this is some kind of scheme to get a discount on your rent. A sick old mother, a dangerous apartment. It' s a classic."

His cruelty hit me like a physical blow, leaving me reeling and powerless as paramedics wheeled my barely conscious mother from our apartment, declaring the CO levels "off the charts" and the place a "death trap."

My mother was fighting for her life in the ICU, while Henderson was on the phone, his voice warm and accommodating, promising to immediately fix a torn window screen for "my best tenant," Dave.

"Are you serious?" I whispered, trembling with fury. "You' re going to fix his window screen right now, but you couldn' t be bothered to fix the heater that almost killed my mother?"

His voice dropped, menacing. "That\'s none of your business. Dave is a model tenant. He understands how things work. Maybe you could learn a thing or two from him."

He hung up, confident in his power over "hysterical women." But as my mother' s doctor grimly told me she was being moved to the ICU, and I recalled every ignored complaint, every dismissal, every woman Henderson had mocked and endangered, the helplessness burned away, replaced by a roaring, determined rage.

He thought I was just an emotional woman. He was about to find out just how hysterical I could be.

Continue Reading

Other books by Gavin

More
Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Mafia

4.3

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

You'll also like

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book