“Your brother and Madison are moving into the penthouse tomorrow. Pack your things and leave.”
For a second, the only sound I heard was the ice machine humming in the kitchen.
“Leave for how long?”
Dad did not blink.
“Permanently.”
### Part 2
I actually laughed once because the sentence was too absurd to process. “This is my lease.” Dad’s face tightened. “Don’t reduce family to paperwork.” I reminded him that I paid almost nine thousand dollars every month, and he snapped, “There you go again, making everything about money.”
Logan leaned back in the dining chair I had bought. Madison rested one manicured hand over Dad’s wrist as though he were the one being attacked. “You’re never here anyway,” Logan said. “You work constantly.”
“I work constantly because I support this place.”
Madison gave me the calm smile she used in her online videos. “Transitions feel threatening, Evelyn. Sometimes loving people means making room for their next chapter.”
I looked at her folder, the champagne, and the fabric samples spread across my table. “When did you decide this?”
Logan hesitated before admitting they had been planning it for nearly two months. Madison had already promised a business partner that she would launch new content from the penthouse on Monday. Dad had even told the concierge I was leaving voluntarily, yet nobody had contacted the company that actually owned the building.
“Who pays until everything gets transferred?” I asked.
The silence answered before Dad did.
“You can cover the next couple of months,” he finally said. “Logan needs time to stabilize the agency.”