The Landlord’s Game of Control

The Landlord's Game of Control

Kattie Eaton

5.0
Comment(s)
6
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 Kattie Eaton

More
Too Late For Regret: The Mafia King's Despair

Too Late For Regret: The Mafia King's Despair

Mafia

5.0

My twin sister Haleigh returned with a fake diagnosis of Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer and a "dying wish" to marry my fiancé, Jameson Blair. Without a second thought, Jameson, the most feared Underboss in New York, took the three-carat diamond meant for me and slid it onto her finger. I became the spare. The obstacle standing in the way of a tragedy's happy ending. When Haleigh planted a brown recluse spider in my room, I was the one bitten and poisoned. Yet, my brothers kicked me while I was delirious with fever, accusing me of trying to terrorize their "dying" angel. On her birthday yacht party, a grill tipped over during a storm. My synthetic dress caught fire instantly. As flames seared the skin off my legs, I screamed for help. But Jameson and my brothers formed a human shield around Haleigh, frantically checking her hand for a single speck of ash while I burned alive just ten feet away. The final straw came at the cliffs. Haleigh staged a suicide attempt to frame me for bullying her. To teach me a lesson, Jameson bound my wrists and hung me over the edge of the abyss on a rope, leaving me dangling helplessly over the churning ocean. They thought they were punishing a monster. They didn't know I had a jagged rock in my hand. As they drove away to comfort the liar, I didn't wait for them to come back. I sawed through the rope myself and let the ocean take me. Three years later, after discovering Haleigh never had cancer, my brothers and Jameson found me alive in Florence. They knelt on the cobblestones, weeping, begging for a second chance. I looked at the men who had watched me burn. "You aren't sorry you hurt me," I said, turning to walk away with another man. "You're just sorry you bet on the wrong sister."

Second Chances: Love After Betrayal

Second Chances: Love After Betrayal

Romance

5.0

My best friend, Emily, and I married into the powerful Thorne family on the same day. We thought we had it all, living a dream life as two of the luckiest women in the world. That illusion shattered on a Tuesday afternoon when Emily burst into my sunroom, her face pale, shoving her phone at me. The screen showed paparazzi photos of her husband, Liam, with another woman – his "childhood sweetheart," Olivia Hayes. Before I could process Emily's fury, my own tablet lit up. A press release from my husband Ethan' s company announced Olivia as the new face of his lifestyle brand, complete with a smiling photo of her next to him. Not only was Olivia the source of my best friend's pain, but my own husband, who had been distant and forgotten our anniversary, had made her our company's public face without a word to me. All my grievances, the neglect, the loneliness-they all flooded back. He didn't even think to mention it, treating me like just another asset to manage, not a wife to love. A cold resolve settled over me. Emily, still raging about her post-divorce plans, saw the press release on my tablet. A dangerous smile spread across her face. "Well," she said, "Looks like we' re both in the market for an upgrade." "Okay," I declared, a hysterical laugh bubbling up. "I' m in. We' re getting divorced. And I' ll find male models who are better than Ethan." Our laughter, wild and unhinged, was cut short by a low, cold voice from the doorway: "Better than me?" My husband, Ethan, stood there. He must have heard everything.

You'll also like

The Sterling Scandal: Married To The Uncle

The Sterling Scandal: Married To The Uncle

C.D
5.0

I was at my own engagement party at the Sterling estate when the world started tilting. Victoria Sterling, my future mother-in-law, smiled coldly as she watched me struggle with a cup of tea that had been drugged to ruin me. Before I could find my fiancé, Ryan, a waiter dragged me into the forbidden West Wing and locked me in a room with Julian Sterling, the family’s "fallen titan" who had been confined to a wheelchair for years. The door burst open to a frenzy of camera flashes and theatrical screams. Victoria framed me as a seductress caught in the act, and Ryan didn't even try to listen to my pleas, calling me "cheap leftovers" before walking away with his pregnant mistress. When I turned to my own family for help, my father signed a document severing our relationship for a five-million-dollar payout from Julian. They traded me like a commodity without a second thought. I didn't understand why my own parents were so eager to sell me, or how Ryan could look at me with such disgust after promising me forever. I was a sacrifice, a pawn used to protect the family's offshore accounts, and I couldn't fathom how every person I loved had a price tag for my destruction. With nowhere left to go, I married Julian in a bleak ceremony at City Hall. He slid a heavy diamond onto my finger and whispered, "We have a war to start." That night, inside his secret penthouse, I watched the paralyzed man stand up from his wheelchair and activate a screen filled with the Sterling family's darkest secrets. The execution had officially begun.

Rejected Heiress: My Heartless Family's Regret

Rejected Heiress: My Heartless Family's Regret

Cassandra
5.0

For seventeen years, I was the pride of the Carlisle family, the perfect daughter destined to inherit an empire. But that life ended the moment a DNA report slid across my father’s mahogany desk. The paper proved I was a stranger. Vanessa, the girl sobbing in the corner, was the real biological daughter they had been searching for. "You need to leave. Tonight. Before the press gets wind of this. Before the stock prices dip." My father’s voice was as cold as flint. My mother wouldn't even look at me, staring out the window at the gardens as if I were already a ghost. Just like that, I was erased. I left behind the Birkin bags and the diamonds, throwing my Centurion Card into a crystal bowl with a clatter that echoed like a gunshot. I walked out into the cold night and climbed into a rusted Ford Taurus driven by a man I had never met—my biological father. I went from a mansion to a fourth-floor walk-up in Queens that smelled of laundry detergent and struggle. My new siblings looked at me with a mix of fear and disgust, waiting for the "fallen princess" to break. They expected me to beg for my old life back, to crumble without the luxury I’d known since birth. But they didn't know the truth. I had spent years training in a shark tank, honing survival skills they couldn't imagine. While Richard Carlisle froze my trust funds to starve me out, my net worth was climbing by millions on an encrypted trading app. They thought they were throwing me to the wolves. They didn't realize they were just letting me off my leash. As the Carlisles prepared to debut Vanessa at the Manhattan Arts Gala, I was already making my move. "Get dressed. We're going to a party."

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book