Chapter 2 - The Title on the Table
The line hummed with static before my father’s voice cut through the speaker, sharp and heavy with unearned authority.
"Iris," Arthur Collins said, not waiting for a greeting. "Where is the car?"
I sat at Monica’s dining table in San Francisco, looking down at a blue folder filled with organized white pages. "I'm driving it, Dad. It’s my car."
"Do not play word games with me," he snapped. The background noise suggested he was standing in his home office in Portland—the room with the heavy dark oak desk where he conducted all family business as if running a small, autocratic corporation. "You took off in the middle of the night like an ungrateful child, and you drove off with property that does not belong to you."
"The Toyota?" I asked, keeping my voice level. "I bought that car seven years ago."
"We co-signed!" he shouted, his patience evaporating. "I put down the deposit! My credit line made that purchase possible. The dealer put the title under the family trust account, which means it belongs to Collins Enterprises. You had permission to drive it while you were in school. That permission is revoked."
I blinked, taking a slow breath. "Collins Enterprises?"
"That’s right," Dad said, his tone turning triumphant. "Did you really think I’d hand an eighteen-year-old a brand-new vehicle without securing my interest? Chelsea needed a second car to haul her photography gear this week, and when we went to register the BMW, the insurance agent flagged the Toyota as an unassigned asset under the company umbrella. You’re driving a company car without an active employee agreement, Iris. Bring it back to Portland by Friday, or I file a grand theft auto report with the state police."
He hung up before I could answer.
Monica walked into the kitchen carrying two mugs of coffee. She set one in front of me and looked at the blue folder lying open on the wood surface. "What did he say?"
"He claims the Toyota belongs to his business," I said softly.
I pulled out the original bill of sale from seven years ago. My signature was written at the bottom in blue ink. Beside it, however, was a secondary line: Arthur Collins, Managing Partner, Collins Family Holdings LLC.
I had been eighteen years old when I signed those papers in a dimly lit dealership office in Seattle. I remembered the day clearly. I had brought three thousand dollars in saved wages from my summer job at a local diner. Dad had driven me there, claiming he was helping me get a fair price. He had spoken to the finance manager behind closed doors for twenty minutes while I waited in the lobby drinking lukewarm water from a paper cup. When he brought the papers out, he pointed to the bottom line and said, Sign here, Iris. I took care of the legal details.
I hadn't read the small print under the buyer box. I had been too proud, too thrilled to finally own something of my own.
For seven years, I had paid the monthly five-hundred-dollar loan installment directly from my personal checking account. I had paid the insurance premiums, the routine maintenance, the tire replacements, and the registration renewals.
"Is his name on the title?" Monica asked, leaning over my shoulder.
"It says Collins Family Holdings," I murmured, tracing the faded ink. "And guess who the sole managing member of that LLC is?"
May you like
"Your father," Monica guessed.
"And guess who holds forty percent of the passive shares?" I added, flipping to a legal addendum my grandmother had left me before she passed away six years ago. "Me."
