My Name Was Banned, But My Success Was Unstoppable novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Main House Has Been Breached
Kerensa comes home a day early and her brother presses the alarm and says he doesn't know her; the guard who walks her out reveals her print was still in the gate, and she calls the lender line.
On Thanksgiving Eve, I walked into my parents' living room and my brother pressed the alarm.
I had flown in that morning, a day early, with a pie box in one hand and a leather folder in the other.
The outer gate of the Thaxton estate opened for my thumb.
I hadn't expected that.
I had been gone five years.
The guards in the entrance hall looked up when I came in.
None of them said my name.
None of them stopped me either.
At nine that morning, my sister had texted me.
"Come tonight! Everyone's home. I'll keep your brother in the living room. Don't tell anyone, Mom will cry."
She had been in our house since she was nine.
She had shared my bedroom wall, my clothes and every secret I owned.
She was the one person who had written to me in all five years.
So I did exactly what she said.
I crossed the marble hall and pushed open the living room doors.
The tree was lit.
My father sat in his armchair with a glass of scotch.
My mother stood by the fireplace in her pearls.
Lydia sat on the sofa in cream knitwear, in the corner that used to be mine.
My brother Edgar stood at the side table with his phone.
"I came home," I said.
Nobody answered me.
My father looked at Lydia first.
Then he looked at me.
Every one of them had his pale gray eyes.
I had always been the brown-eyed one in the family photos.
I took a step toward the tree.
"Edgar?" I said.
My brother reached out and pressed a small black button on the table.
A red light blinked under the lamp.
Somewhere in the walls, a quiet alarm began to pulse.
"The main house has been breached," Edgar said into the room.
He looked straight at me.
"I don't know this woman."
I laughed, because it couldn't be real.
"Edgar, it's me."
"Get her out," my mother said.
She didn't raise her voice.
"That name is not spoken in this house, and neither is that face."
Four guards came through the doors at a run.
Two of them took my arms.
The pie box hit the floor and split open.
Pumpkin spread across the rug.
A guard twisted my wrist behind me, and I cried out.
My father didn't move from his chair.
Lydia rose from the sofa with both hands pressed to her mouth.
"Please, be gentle with her," she said to the guards.
Her voice shook.
"She's confused. She's been alone so long. Don't hurt her."
My mother put an arm around her.
"You're too kind, sweetheart," she said.
Nobody asked me why I'd come.
Nobody asked what was in the folder.
"I covered for you for twenty years," I said to my brother.
"I stood beside you at Grandpa's grave, holding your hand."
Edgar looked at the guards.
"Is she armed?" he asked.
"No, sir," one of them said.
"Then walk her to the gate."
"Let go of her wrist."
The voice came from the doorway.
Torsten Rhodes, the head of security, had been on the estate for six years.
He was broad and quiet, and he had never raised his voice in my hearing.
He didn't raise it now.
The guard let go.
"I'll take her out myself," Torsten said.
My mother turned on him.
"Thaddeus, tell him not to speak to her."
My father finally spoke, to her and not to me.
"Let him do it, Ingrid. I want her out of my sight."
"I'm not speaking to her, ma'am," Torsten said.
"I'm removing her."
He put a hand near my elbow without touching it.
I walked out between the guards with my head up.
Behind me I heard Lydia say, softly, "Poor thing."
We crossed the hall and the long drive in the cold.
At the gate, Torsten stopped.
He looked back at the house.
Then he looked at the thumb scanner on the post.
"It opened for you," he said.
"I saw."
"It's not supposed to."
"Then why did it?"
"Your print has been in that system for five years," he said.
"I was ordered to delete it the day you left."
He stared at the scanner.
"Tonight, I'm going to delete it."
I stood there with my wrist burning and pumpkin on my shoes.
I thought about the folder in my hand.
I had come here with a gift.
In October, my company had quietly bought the mortgage on this house and every loan that was sinking Thaxton Group.
I had meant to walk into that room and tell them they could keep their home.
I had meant to say, I forgive you.
I looked at the red light still pulsing in the front window.
So I stopped being their daughter.
I took out my phone and called my assistant in Chicago.
"It's Kerensa," I said.
"Wren Holdings holds the note on the main house."
"Yes," she said.
"Call it in," I said.
"All of it."
"Due Monday."
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