I looked at the smug, self-righteous set of his face, and inside I let out a cold laugh.

"Fine. Free market, buying and selling. I'll grant you that."

"But what about all the public parking spaces for miles outside the complex?"

"What gives him the right to wave around some document nobody can even prove is real, and collect fines off everyone?"

Clark Perry's expression flickered, but he pulled himself back together fast.

"Anything outside the complex is the traffic enforcement unit's business, and the city's. What's the point of coming to management about it?"

"If you feel that hard done by, go file a police report."

He waved a hand at me, the gesture of a man showing a guest out.

"That's enough, Miss Swanson. I'm a busy man. If there's nothing else, you'd best head back."

I held his gaze a few seconds, then turned and walked out of the management office.

Back home, I opened the residents' group chat.

The thing had completely blown up.

"This property management is obviously in on it with Lucius Armstrong!"

"I asked around today. Manager Clark Perry, the property manager, is actually Lucius Armstrong's own uncle!"

"No wonder he's so brazen. He's got someone backing him."

Alison Ball posted a long message in the chat.

"Everyone, listen up. I just had someone look into this."

"This Lucius Armstrong is a repeat offender!"

"He pulled the exact same thing over at Fairmont Court next door. Bought up every single parking space the same way."

"Same rent too, five grand a month. Had that whole complex miserable."

"Complaining did no good either, because the head of Fairmont Court's property management is the same uncle, Clark Perry!"

Reading that, the last of my confusion cleared.

So it was relatives working the con together. No wonder they dared to hog everything this openly.

They'd set their minds on fleecing us residents for every dollar we had.

I scrolled through the messages, each one furious and each one helpless.

Everyone was complaining, everyone was pointing fingers, but no one could put forward an actual solution.

And since Lucius and the property people weren't in this chat, everyone spoke freely.

I posted a message.

"Everyone hold on, let me run some numbers for you."

The chat went quiet in an instant.

"If we rent his spaces at five grand a month, that's sixty grand a year."

"Every cent of that is him fleecing us on purpose."

"I did the math. If we pool our money and build a new parking lot nearby,"

"split among all of us, the cost per person works out even cheaper than buying a space in this complex."

The moment that message landed, the chat boiled over.

"Build our own lot? Can that even work?"

"Build it where? Is there any open land around here?"

Alison was the first to jump in.

"I think Caroline's right! Why should we swallow this humiliation?"

"The people next door have been fed up for ages too. I'll pull them into the chat, and we'll all chip in together!"

Watching everyone rally behind it, one corner of my mouth curved into a cold smile.

"As long as we stick together, we build our own lot and never have to take this kind of abuse again."

Just as the funding for the lot was nearly gathered,

a resident from the complex next door raised a question:

"That empty patch of land between the two complexes, the one we just agreed to build the lot on,"

"the owner is a real mystery. Where do we even go to contact him about buying it?"

"I heard Clark Perry's property company wanted to buy it up for an expansion before. They reached out over and over and got turned down every time."

"They never even got a meeting with the owner. Can we really pull this off?"

I leaned back against the couch, fingers tapping lightly at my phone screen.

"Don't worry. The land, I can handle."

I didn't spell it out in the chat, that the land was actually what my grandfather had left me.

I'd wanted to keep it as a keepsake, so in all these years I'd never touched it.

When Clark Perry had reached out before, hoping to buy it cheap, I'd refused without a second thought.

I never imagined this land, meant to be kept for remembrance, would turn out to be the key to breaking us free.

If my grandfather could see it from wherever he was, I think he'd be happy too.

The next morning, I'd barely reached the front gate of the complex when I ran straight into Lucius Armstrong.

The second he saw me, his mouth twisted into a sneer.

"Well, if it isn't the Swanson Good Samaritan."

"I hear you're rounding up that bunch of broke losers to pool your money for a new parking lot."

My stomach dropped, and my heart skipped a beat.

We'd only ever talked about the funding inside our private group chat. How did he know?

Was there a mole in the chat?

Lucius watched my expression shift, and his smile widened.

"What's wrong? Caught you off guard, did I? Scared now?"

"Caroline, take my advice and quit dreaming."

"The owner of that vacant lot is a real ghost. Even my uncle can't get hold of him. And you think you can?"

"You can run around all you want. In the end, the whole lot of you will crawl right back and rent my spaces like good little tenants."

Hearing that, I actually felt myself relax.

So he knew about our plan, but he didn't see it as a threat at all.

He was just waiting for us to fail, enjoying the show.

I gave him one cold look, said nothing, and turned and walked away.

Back home, I went straight through the chat history.

It didn't take long to find the mole feeding information to Clark Perry, and I kicked them out of the group.

To be safe, I built a brand-new, completely private chat.

Only people who'd already paid their share could get in.

"The lot will take about two months to finish."

I posted the message in the new group.

"For these two months, we're going to have to spend a little money."

"Everyone rent Lucius's spaces in batches. Let him think our plan fell apart, so he drops his guard completely."

The next day, I took a few resident representatives to go rent spaces from Lucius.

He looked at us and smiled, ugly to the core.

"Want to rent a space now? Too late."

"Caroline, aren't you the capable one? Weren't you going to build your new parking lot?"

"You want to rent my spaces? Fine."

"You, as the resident representative, get down on your knees and kowtow three times and apologize."

"If it puts me in a good enough mood, maybe I'll rent to you."

The whole thing turned my stomach, and I spun around to leave.

"I don't want a space like this!"

I'd barely turned when two of Lucius's thugs rushed me.

They clamped down on my shoulders from both sides and forced me down onto my knees.

My knees cracked against the hard floor, and pain shot through them.

Lucius walked over and slapped me hard across the face.

"You little bitch, you want to rent my spaces and you still dare to look at me like that?"

"Let me tell you, five thousand won't get you anything now!"

"You want to rent today, it's seven thousand a month. One cent short and you don't park at all!"

Alison Ball's eyes went red with fury and she started to charge forward on my behalf, but I stopped her cold with a look.

I bit through my lip and tasted blood.

Swallowing my anger, I lifted my head and looked at him.

"Fine. Seven thousand it is."

We paid two months' rent and left the property office with Lucius's wild laughter following us out.

Two months later, our new parking lot was finished without a hitch.

Lucius came to find me, renewal contract in hand.

"Caroline, the two months are up. Time to renew your space."

"Don't renew on time this round, and next month it's eight thousand."

I looked at him, and suddenly I smiled.

"No need. We won't be parking at your place anymore."

Lucius froze for a second, then burst into a grating laugh.

"Not with me? And where exactly would you go? Don't tell me you're still dreaming about that new parking lot?"

I pulled out the photos of the finished lot and smiled as I said to him:

"You guessed right. Our new parking lot is already built!"