I told him he could use it.

“The security company is recording everything,” I added.

Dad immediately told him not to touch it.

“Why?” David asked.

“Because she wants us outside.”

“Yes,” I said through the speaker. “That’s generally what happens when people enter a house they don’t own.”

Olivia moved closer to the camera.

“You gave us a key.”

“No. Dad kept an old spare key from when he supervised a roofing contractor two years ago.”

“That still gave us access.”

“It gave him a key he was supposed to return.”

Then Dad made his first serious mistake.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You didn’t own this place anymore when we entered.”

Michael whispered,

“Got him.”

I muted the microphone.

“Why?”

“Because he just admitted he believed ownership had already changed before today. He isn’t claiming there was a misunderstanding. He’s relying on a specific document.”

A document I had never signed.

David finally pressed the emergency release.

The door opened immediately.

Nobody left.

And that was when Dad seemed to realize something important.

They had never really been trapped inside my house.

They had been documented.

Every word.

Every claim.

Every entrance.

Every page Dad held toward the camera.

Timestamped.

Stored.

Preserved.

Then Michael’s voice changed.

“Lauren.”

“What?”

“The deed was recorded.”

My stomach dropped.

“When?”

“Eleven days ago.”

Someone had officially filed a quitclaim deed transferring my villa to Richard Bennett.

My father.

Eleven days earlier.

While I had been at sea with limited communication access.

The timing was not accidental.

Then Michael found something worse.

“There’s another recorded document from four days later.”

“What?”

“A deed of trust.”