Chapter 49: Titan Capital (2)
Felix’s mother’s place was also within the Bongo neighborhood and was just around the corner from the café. That was Felix’s next location.
He stepped out of the café and began tracing his steps back home. He didn’t rush but took his time, taking in the sights of the neighborhood as he went. Lilith silently walked behind him.
It didn’t take long to arrive at the gates which stood ajar, and Felix stepped in and arrived at the door. And right there, slapped on the wooden door was an identical eviction notice to the one he’d picked up, signed by Titan Capital, just like every other house in the neighborhood.
The Titan Capital was a loan shark organization and though Felix didn’t know why his mother had probably taken a loan from them, it would’ve been a normal occurrence for them to take over her business as collateral, but not destroy it—as there was literally no gain to it.
Also, it would’ve been a normal occurrence for a few people in the poor neighborhood to take out a loan from the organization, but not the entire neighborhood.
Felix tightly clenched his jaw as he ripped the notice off the door and scrunched it up in his fist.
He took out a spare key from beneath a pot plant laying by the side and unlocked the door to step into his home.
Luckily, it hadn’t been tampered with and his mom had probably left in a hurry to her mom’s, in fear of what the Titan Capital goons might do to her.
Felix looked around the house for a bit. He picked up a picture frame laying on the table and stared at the three figures in the frame. His dad, his mom, and him—when he was much younger.
Looking at his father’s picture, Felix felt a sharp pang in his chest and returned the frame to its spot, facing it downwards.
He walked towards his mother’s room but discovered the door was locked. Felix didn’t have a spare key for it, so he had to pry it open by melting the locks.
He needed to find anything relating to the Titan Capital that might give him an idea into what had happened in his absence.
The room turned out to be a bit stuffy, with luggages neatly arranged at the corners of the room to save space. Felix wasn’t sure where to start from and began respectfully turning the room upside down.
It didn’t matter now because the property belonged to Titan Capital and they could decide to come at any time to take out his mother’s belongings and sell the house.
Felix opened every drawer, flipped through the stacks of documents, searched the wardrobe, lifted the bedframe, pulled out every box in the room to sift through its contents—but he found nothing.
At this point, Felix had to take a seat on the bed, considering ripping the walls off.
"If I were scammed by the loan company, where could I possibly keep the papers...?" Felix mumbled to himself in deep thoughts.
There might’ve been a chance that his mother took the documents with her, but that was very unlikely and Felix had to be sure they weren’t really here before he left.
That was when it clicked with him.
"If I were to realize I had been scammed by a loan company, I’d probably go back to agreement papers to see what I hadn’t realized before... and I’ll probably be very mad at that moment and could end up ripping the papers," Felix suddenly stood up.
He had checked everywhere in the room except for one place.
He quickly walked over to a rubber basket just behind the door, and poured out its contents onto the floor—consisting mostly of scrunched-up papers.
He hadn’t checked the trash basket in her room.
Felix quickly began sifting through the trashed papers and documents in the basket, until he stretched one out and was just about to set it aside, when he spotted the letter heading that had the title Titan Capital.
Felix quickly sat cross-legged on the floor and spread the crunched-up paper to read its contents. But to say Felix was stunned at what he found would be an understatement.
It started off that the interest rate of the loan was only 5% in a 6-month installment—which was great. Mrs. Thomasville had taken out a loan of ten thousand dollars from the Titan Capital, to fully repay ten thousand, five hundred dollars in six months, right? But no.
The agreement also clearly stated—in fine print—that every month you failed to pay the total amount of the loan—in Felix’s mother’s case: the ten thousand dollars—the loan is doubled and the loanee loses the ownership rights to their collateral until the doubled amount is paid off.
That was literally what the document stated—in fucking fine print. And Felix couldn’t help but just sit and stare at an empty spot.
He wanted to ask who was stupid enough to see this and still take the damn loan, but that would be his mother—and many others.
It didn’t make any sense. Why would the entire neighborhood take a loan with such an absurd agreement?
Felix wanted it to make sense, so he re-read it multiple times until he could recite its contents offhand.
Just how were the Titan Capital able to convince everyone to take such a loan, because honestly, Felix would only agree to such bullshit at gunpoint—and that was clearly not the case here.
Felix could also remember the Titan Capital didn’t operate legally and never used complicated things such as legal papers, but they had used it to pull off this scam.
But then, the Titan Capital surely knew the poor neighborhood wouldn’t be able to repay such amounts and would just lose money instead.
Except, their goal wasn’t the money, but the neighborhood itself seeing as it was now deserted with all the properties seized by them.
Felix couldn’t help but steal a glance at Lilith at that moment. Lilith probably knew this was deeper than it seemed, which prompted her to give out a quest.
Does that mean she perhaps knew everything that happened there already? After all, she’s a primordial goddess.