Stepfather and Foster Brother Sold My Luxuries, So I Sued

My stepfather and his foster son seized my luxury goods and sold them off, and in the end, greedy for more, they went after my father's keepsakes.

In my anger, I took the two of them to court, laying out the evidence to put them behind bars for good.

My wife, still abroad at a major conference, heard about it, and though she had never once bent the rules for anyone, she did the unthinkable and abandoned a room full of executives to rush home.

She hired the best lawyer to overturn the case for my stepfather, and even claimed that all those luxury goods had been bought by her, so if I could use them, the foster son could too.

Humiliated in front of everyone, I filed for divorce on the spot. That was when my wife finally panicked, leaving her foster brother behind and chasing after me to smooth things over.

"There, honey, don't be angry anymore."

"The things Vincent Delgado took are just junk to me. I only helped him because I didn't want outsiders calling you heartless and cruel, pointing fingers at you behind your back."

To show she was sorry, she took me to the most luxurious mall and reserved three floors of designer counters so I could buy whatever I wanted.

"Honey, those outfits and that watch are nice. Only someone as distinguished as you deserves them."

Right away, she had the staff cut off the tags and told me to go in and try them on.

But when I came back out in them, she was gone.

I waited almost until closing time, and still she didn't come back.

With no other choice, I got ready to pull out a card and pay.

Only to find that every card in my wallet had vanished.

"Mr. Henson, will you be paying by card or through the app?"

I spent more than ten minutes digging through my wallet. No, to be precise, I stood there frozen for ten minutes.

I remembered putting several different cards in my wallet before I left the house. Why were they all gone?

The one who was supposed to pay was Althea Harding, but she was nowhere to be found.

I made a full hundred calls, and every one of them sank without a trace.

Right then, it felt like a pile of stone had lodged against my chest, a thousand pounds of it, and I couldn't shake it.

The salesgirl was the type who read the room. She'd gone from her earlier fawning respect to rolling her eyes at me now.

"Mr. Henson, our store has already stayed open past closing for you."

"Past closing is the least of it! You still haven't paid for the three floors you said you'd reserve, out of your own mouth."

Morton Lambert, the mall's manager, came in with a good number of security guards.

They blocked every exit, as if afraid I'd seize the chance to run.

I couldn't hold back my contempt. I, Neal Henson, was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Whatever I wanted, I got.

How would I ever run off broke and disgraced?

But it was true, I was the one who'd announced I'd reserve three floors. Althea had wanted to give me that backing, wanted me to declare it in front of everyone, to show off what a loving wife she was.

And now?

I couldn't even find where Althea had gone.

I set down my wallet and stood, lifting my head to meet the impatient salesgirl and Manager Lambert.

"Watch your tone with me. I'm not some deadbeat skipping out on the bill."

"I'll pay through the app!"

But when I walked over to the counter to pay, the transfer wouldn't go through.

I froze for a second, then tried a few more times. Same result every time.

The salesgirl dropped all pretense of courtesy, her face going cold. "Mr. Henson, what do you propose we do now?"

"You cut the tags off three of this season's suits, worth forty million all together. Now your cards are gone, and the app won't work either."

"What are you going to pay with?"

"Plus the cost of reserving three floors. That's fifty million total."

"You're the husband of Ms. Harding, the richest woman in New York, after all. Don't tell me you can't cover a trifling amount like this?"

The words had barely left his mouth when a burst of shrill cheering rose up from downstairs.

"Wow, Vincent is so lucky! Ms. Harding gave him a full thirty million in clothes and watches."

"Oh my God! I could only dream of things like this, and here it is in real life."

Through the shrill noise came Vincent's smug voice.

"Althea's always saying I'm stuck wearing the hand-me-downs my big brother didn't want. She felt so bad for me, so she got me these nice things."

"Oh my God! I had no idea Vincent had it so hard."

"He may be a foster son, but he's still a young master of the Henson family! And there he is wearing Neal's castoffs."

"By the look of it, Neal must be using his position to keep him down at every turn."

Right on cue, Vincent put on that wronged, hesitant look, as if there was something he wouldn't let himself say, which only convinced the outsiders that what they'd just said was fact.

My hand tightened into a fist without thinking, and I was about to walk out when Manager Lambert stopped me.

"Mr. Henson, you haven't paid your bill! And just where do you think you're going?"

"Manager Lambert, please, don't worry."

"I'm not trying to run. I'm going downstairs to find my wife."

"Blocking me here won't solve anything anyway."

Morton thought it over, then finally dropped his hand and followed me, trailing me all the way down to the next floor.

From a distance, I saw Althea take out a luxury watch and, with the gentlest motion, fasten it onto Vincent's slender wrist.

The bystanders around them couldn't help murmuring in envy.

"Vincent, is there anything else you want to buy?"

"No, this is plenty."

"I don't want too much luxury. It breeds arrogance in a person."

"God, Vincent is so considerate!"

"Anyone else would've just kept buying and buying."

The sight of it put me in a foul mood.

Vincent was, after all, my family's foster son, and here Althea was, publicly trying on a watch with him in that ambiguous, intimate way.

Only when I walked over did the voices around me suddenly fall silent.

"That's Neal Henson."

"Watch what you say. He's a petty one."

Althea didn't turn to look at me. She stayed focused, fastening the clasp for Vincent.

Vincent flinched all at once and pushed Althea away, putting on a frightened, uneasy look.

"Neal!"

Althea's face darkened in an instant.

"If you had any sense of propriety, you'd know to keep an appropriate distance from your brother's wife at all times, no matter where you are."

"Not wait until I show up to figure that out."

My voice dropped a degree colder, and then I turned to look at Althea.

"Weren't we agreed that you'd apologize to me, book out three floors of counters and let me pick whatever luxury goods I wanted? So why did you bring him here?"

The air went taut as a drawn bow, and no one around dared make a sound.

Althea didn't answer my question right away. Instead she reached out and took Vincent's hand.

As if that gave him all the backing he needed, so she'd have enough to stand on and never have to fear me.

"Neal, I'm not your slave."

"I'd advise you to watch the way you speak to me. You'd do well to be more polite."

"After all, your Henson family only survives because of me."

Someone couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. It was aimed at me, mocking.

"What's gotten into you?"

Her sudden coldness caught me off guard.

"Nothing. I just wanted you to taste what it feels like to be falsely accused of stealing luxury goods."

My pupils gave a violent twitch, and a wave of unease rose in my chest.

From coming with me to the mall, to my cards vanishing, to her disappearing at the critical moment, one thing after another lined up.

She'd done all this to get even for Vincent, likely a deliberate act of revenge against me.

I knit my brows, at a loss, holding her gaze.

She only gave an easy little laugh. "Looking at me like that won't change anything."

"Wasn't it you who booked three floors and cut off the tags?"

"Since you did it, then you're the only one who can pay for it."

The moment she finished, the people around finally let out a breath.

"Nobody needs to panic. Turns out Ms. Harding doesn't love him half as much as the rumors say."

"Tch, arrogant and rude as she is, I wouldn't dare marry her either if I were a man."

"If she treats Ms. Harding's own husband like this, she probably treats his foster brother even worse."

The strangers' words falling into Althea's ears would only make her pity Vincent all the more.

Right then, Vincent broke free of Althea's hand, walked straight over, and slapped me across the face.

"Neal, I used to be so afraid of you. But to get justice for my father, I've decided to teach you a lesson."

His nails raked across my face and opened a bloody line.

The slap caught me completely off guard.

I turned my head back to him slowly, regretting my stupidity all those years ago for the third time.

Seven years ago, I was the one who took the two of them in.

Vincent's father had married into his wife's family, and then her mother had thrown him out.

With nowhere to go, he ended up drifting on the streets, until I found him and brought him home.

My father had meant to hand them some money and send the pair on their way, but the man dropped to his knees and begged to be taken in, swearing he'd work like an ox, like a dog, whatever it took.

I couldn't bear it, so I asked my father to keep them.

Later, that man crawled into my mother's bed. My father caught them in the act, they argued, and he fell down the stairs to his death.

After that, my mother took the man in as her second husband, married into our family.

Once he became my stepfather, his true nature started to show.

"Neal, you'd better remember this."

"Say what you want, my father is still your father. You don't have to acknowledge him, but you don't get to humiliate him."

I shot my hand up and caught his wrist as he drew back to hit me again.

"Father? Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"A man who threw away every shred of decency to climb into his benefactor's wife's bed doesn't get to call himself my father."

"If you won't acknowledge him, then we're done as mother and son."

My mother came over, the aggrieved stepfather at her side.

"Neal, how could you call the police on your own father?"

"You've gone too far."

Everyone else raised their hands and pointed at me too, ranting about how arrogant and out of line I was.

The cut on my face and Althea's cold indifference left me looking utterly pathetic.

I forced the bitterness down. I would not show weakness in front of them.

"Why shouldn't I call the police on them? My door was locked, and they got someone to pry it open and take my things. Taking what isn't yours without asking is theft."

"I didn't. We really didn't take anything of yours."

"I only went in to tidy the room out of kindness. You said you didn't want that junk, and it seemed a waste to throw it out, so I picked it up and wore it."

When the stepfather finished, a shocked murmur ran through the crowd.

"No way! He's the young master of the Henson family!"

"And he's so low he wears the junk other people throw away."

Hearing it, the fury on my mother's face only grew.

"Freeze this animal's cards for me"

"Mother, don't upset yourself."

"I froze his cards a long time ago."

"If we don't teach him a lesson, he'll never learn how to respect people."

The stepfather and Vincent stole a glance at each other, sly grins tugging at their mouths.

But to protect the good-man image he'd built up, the stepfather turned to my mother with a guilty tone and pleaded on my behalf.

"Darling, don't be like this, both of you."

"Can't we just go home and raise the boy properly? Why criticize him in front of all these outsiders?"

"I may be his stepfather, but I've long thought of him as my own son."

Hearing that, my mother gripped his hand, pleased and aching for him at once.

Vincent shouted at me: "Neal, aren't you going to come over and apologize to Father?"

Althea pressed me with the same attitude, as though she'd send me to prison if I didn't apologize.

Thinking back, she hadn't seemed to like the pair of them before.

Every time my mother scolded me over those two, she'd been the one to take my side and get me even.

Seeing how good she was to me was why I'd begged my grandfather to give the Harding family serious help behind the scenes.

That was what launched the Hardings overnight and made them the richest family in New York.

Because my grandfather believed the only way to protect his grandson was to make the Hardings strong.

So when Althea said my life and death depended on nothing but her Harding family, I felt nothing but contempt.

Facing the scorn coming at me from every side, I decided I was done with Althea.

"Neal, are you deaf?"

"Get over here and apologize to your father, now."

"My father died the day he walked in on the two of you together."

"And now you want me to call his killer my father? Does that seem right to you?"

I stood my ground, refusing to be crushed by any of it.

Althea and my mother's faces went hard as stone.

But my stepfather didn't get angry. Instead he held Vincent back.

"Vincent, don't be rash."

"Neal's misread me for a long time. But he's still my son. I'm willing to wait for the day he calls me father."

Vincent glared at me, shaking with rage. "Neal, you see that? Even now Dad is still taking your side."

Althea didn't step forward. It was as though her patience had finally run out.

She looked at me with those cold, bottomless eyes I knew so well. She never quit until she got what she wanted.

"Since you won't admit you're wrong, don't blame me for being ruthless."

She threw down her warning right there, to every single person in the mall, and no one who shopped here was anything less than rich or powerful.

"Anyone who helps Neal is making an enemy of the Harding family."

"Today, I'm going to make him kneel and kowtow to Vincent and his father in front of everyone."

I'd already told myself she was nothing to me. But hearing her turn on me so coldly, with my own ears, the pain still cut me to the bone.

"You really want your own husband to lose every shred of dignity in front of all these people?"

"Yes!"

"And if you still won't learn your lesson, a husband can be replaced."

Vincent's eyes lit up at that.

Get rid of me, and he could marry Althea.

So on top of the apology, he pushed to humiliate me even further.

"Neal, if you can't pay the bill, you're going to prison."

"If you don't want to do time, kneel down and kowtow to us three hundred times, and say your father was a coward."

Hearing him insult my father, I couldn't stop myself. I swung and drove my fist into his face.

I didn't expect that punch to be the spark. Althea rushed over and shoved me hard.

I lost my footing and went straight down to the floor.

The people around me watched with the most mocking eyes, savoring the joke, the eldest heir of the Henson family reduced to something worth less than a single hair on the foster son's head.

"Neal, you won't shed a tear until you see the coffin, will you."

"You'll never back down until someone teaches you a lesson."

"Manager!"

Manager Lambert came out trembling. "Ms. Harding, what can I do for you?"

"Make him pay the bill right now. Don't give him a second to stall."

"And if he can't pay, don't hold back on my account. Send him straight in and let him sit inside for a while."

Her coldness severed the last thread of feeling I had left for her.

Every person there watched to see how I'd end up, and not one of them would step forward to help me.

It wasn't that they didn't want to. They didn't dare.

"Althea, I'll ask you just one thing."

"When did you fall in love with Vincent?"

I really wanted to know.

Before she could answer, Vincent walked over, smug, and murmured low, "In bed. Pity you were asleep for it."

"Well, brother? Satisfied with the answer?"

"If you are, hurry up and pay. You're exactly like your coward of a father. Dumb as a pig."

With that, he turned away and went back to Althea's side without another glance.

Manager Lambert's face darkened at once as he came over, his manner toward me foul now.

He stopped calling me Mr. Henson and used my name to my face.

"Neal, pay the bill now."

He knew perfectly well my cards were frozen, that I had no money to pay.

"No money to pay? Then there's nothing to do but send you to prison."

"You there, the clothes on his back aren't paid for either. Strip them off and haul him down to the station."

"Yes, ma'am!"

I dropped the first man who came at me with one punch.

"What's the rush? Who said I couldn't pay?"

My mother's face stayed cold as she mocked me. "You animal, we froze all your cards. Everything you have, you have because of us. Where would you get money to pay a bill?"

"And if I do have it?"

"If you can pay this bill, I'll do what you've always wanted. I'll give your father's company back to you."

"Talk is cheap. Why should I believe you?"

"If I go back on my word, may lightning strike me dead."

Vincent moved in to twist the knife too. "If you can't afford it, then sign your shares over to me."

Then he pulled out a stock transfer agreement and threw it at me.

I smiled, and the smile carried a lot. "Get too arrogant and it comes back to bite you."

Everyone looked at me with contempt, sure I was still bluffing with the coffin at my back.

Just then my phone buzzed with a notification. Smiling, I opened it.

"Manager, stop listening to his nonsense, grab him and get him to prison"

But Vincent never finished. His eyes went wider than lanterns.

"One... one billion..."

Althea flinched hard, her voice suddenly sharp and quick. "Neal, where did you get one billion???"