Because the moment the actual owner decides to act, the whole difference between living somewhere and owning it — which felt, for years, like a mere technicality, a piece of paperwork no one thinks about — becomes the only fact in the world that matters.

Luca had spent seven years unable to tell the difference between his residence in my life and his ownership of it.

A single afternoon at a county clerk’s office taught him the difference, permanently, and it cost him everything, because the difference had been the truth the entire time, patiently waiting under all his confidence for the day someone finally invoked it.

Chapter 3 — The Cash Buyer