Chapter 5 - You Sold the Farm
Now, three months too late, Garrett stood staring at her phone like it might bite him.
“What the hell does that mean?” he demanded.
Sienna kept the screen angled away.
“It means the deed you want can’t save you.”
Vivien’s face tightened.
“What did you sign?”
Sienna tilted her head.
“Isn’t that what you came here to force me to do?”
Douglas stepped closer.
“Sienna, answer your mother.”
That almost made her laugh.
Her mother.
Not when Vivien watched Garrett twist her wrist.
Not when the plate of pressure became violence.
But now, when information moved out of reach, titles returned.
Sienna looked at Douglas.
“No.”
Garrett lunged for the phone.
Sienna stepped back against the truck and lifted it higher.
He stopped only because one of the farm workers appeared near the shop.
Then another.
Then two customers at the lavender stand turned toward them.
Witnesses.
Garrett saw them and lowered his hand.
That was his second mistake.
He still cared what strangers saw.
Sienna did not.
Not anymore.
Her cheek was already bruised.
Her wrist already red.
Her family already exposed.
Vivien lowered her voice.
“Come inside. We can discuss this privately.”
Sienna looked toward the farmhouse.
The house where she had once slept in three sweaters.
The porch she rebuilt.
The kitchen where Vivien refused to drink coffee because the mugs were chipped.
“No.”
Vivien’s eyes narrowed.
“Sienna.”
“You don’t get privacy after he put his hands on me.”
Garrett laughed sharply.
“You grabbed me too.”
“You attacked me.”
“I restrained you.”
“You threatened to break my arm.”
“No one heard that.”
Sienna tapped her phone.
“I did.”
His face changed.
Small.
Quick.
But she saw it.
So did Douglas.
Vivien whispered, “You recorded?”
Sienna’s smile disappeared.
“Yes.”
Garrett’s jaw flexed.
“Delete it.”
“No.”
“I said delete it.”
“And I said you’re late.”
Douglas’s face had gone ashy.
He was the first to understand this was not simply about the assault.
He looked toward the lavender rows.
Then the moving truck.
Then the sign.
Then Sienna’s phone.
“You sold it,” he said.
Vivien turned.
“What?”
Douglas’s eyes stayed on Sienna.
“You sold the farm.”
Garrett stared.
“No.”
Sienna said nothing.
Garrett shook his head.
“No, you can’t. You wouldn’t.”
There was panic now.
Real panic.
Not from hurting her.
Not from threatening her.
From losing access.
Vivien’s voice became sharp.
“Sienna, tell me you did not sell family property.”
Sienna looked at her mother.
“You mean the worthless dirt?”
Vivien flinched as if slapped.
Good.
Sienna remembered the exact phrase.
Worthless dirt.
Vivien had said it at the family attorney’s office ten years earlier while pushing the deed folder toward Sienna.
Let her have the worthless dirt, Douglas. Maybe responsibility will mature her.
Sienna had kept that sentence like a stone in her pocket for a decade.
Now she finally set it down.
Garrett backed away from the truck hood.
His hand shook.
“You had no right.”
Sienna stared at him.
“I had every right. You made sure of that when you dumped it in my name.”
Vivien stepped toward her.
“We gave you that land.”
“You abandoned me on it.”
“We helped you.”
“You never visited until tourists started posting photos.”
Douglas’s voice lowered.
“Sienna, who bought it?”
She smiled faintly.
That was the question.
The one the video would not answer.
Not yet.
“You don’t know them well enough to threaten them.”
Garrett’s face flushed.
“Do you understand what you’ve done? I owe people money.”
“I know.”
His eyes snapped to hers.
Sienna continued, “Private lenders. Two bridge loans. A personal guarantee you forged using Dad’s old company letterhead. And one man named Paul Renner who has been calling my office pretending to be a floral wholesaler.”
Douglas turned slowly toward Garrett.
“What?”
Garrett’s mouth opened.
No sound came.
Vivien’s eyes flicked to her son, then immediately away, as if she could reject the fact by refusing to look at it.
Sienna nodded.
“There it is.”
Douglas’s voice became hard.
“Garrett.”
Garrett snapped, “Don’t start.”
That was the first time he had ever spoken to their father that way in front of Sienna.
She watched Douglas absorb it.
Too late.
Always too late.
Vivien recovered first.
“We can still fix this. If the sale is recent, there may be options.”
Sienna almost admired her.
Even now, Vivien did not ask whether Sienna was hurt.
She asked whether the transaction could be undone.
“No,” Sienna said.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“Then you’ll cooperate with counsel.”
Sienna put the phone back into her vest pocket.
“My counsel closed the deal.”
Garrett cursed and kicked the gravel.
A family near the shop turned fully now.
A little girl holding a lavender lemonade stared.
Sienna saw herself through the child’s eyes for one strange second.
Bruised woman.
Angry man.
Beautiful field.
The farm’s worst moment under perfect sunlight.
She straightened.
“Leave.”
Garrett looked at her with hatred.
“You think this is over?”
“No.”
That made him pause.
May you like
Sienna stepped closer, not enough for him to grab her again.
“I think it’s finally documented.”
