The Understated General Returns

Chapter 7 - Apartment Encounter

Rain lashed the roof of Doris's apartment that morning; a dark stain had spread across the ceiling in the corner of the bedroom, and water dripped steadily into a bucket Doris had placed there earlier.

Dennis stood beneath it, watching the water fall, drop by drop, into the bucket already half full.

"How long has this been happening?" he asked, without turning around.

Doris wrapped her arms around herself, standing in the doorway. "A few weeks now, I've called someone to fix it twice. But everytime they said they'd come and never did. I told the landlord myself, more than once. He kept saying he'd send someone, but It just kept getting worse."

Dennis pressed two fingers against the swollen patch of ceiling, and watched it sag under the pressure like it might give way completely. His jaw tightened, and he shook his head.

"You've been living like this with Liam." His voice was filled with irritation

"I didn't have a choice, Dennis. I couldn't afford anywhere else, and I couldn't leave him with nowhere to sleep at all."

Dennis stood, and when he looked at her, there was no anger aimed at her, only at everything that had put her in that position. "Pack your things, both of you. We're not staying here another night."

Doris blinked at him. "Dennis, we don't have money for anywhere else. This is what I can afford."

"I'll get us a new place today, somewhere bigger and more comfortable than this." He said seriously and then moved away. "You're not raising our son under a ceiling that's about to come down on him."

She wanted to argue, wanted to remind him that buying or finding a house wasn't something you just decided over breakfast, but the look on his face told her there was no version of this conversation where he changed his mind, so she nodded instead.

"Okay," she whispered. "I'll go pack."

She'd barely turned toward the bedroom when the front door shook under a fist pounding against it, hard enough that the frame rattled and a hairline crack split down the wood.

Doris's whole body went cold.

She reached the door before Dennis could stop her and opened it to find her landlord standing on the other side.

Mr Chamberlain, flanked by four men built like they'd been assembled for exactly this kind of visit. Rain dripped off his coat onto the doorstep. His eyes were cold and unimpressive compared to the men behind him.

"Mr. Chamberlain," Doris said, voice already shaking.

"Where's my money?" he said, not bothering with a greeting. "Three months, Doris. Three months you've been telling me you'll pay, and I haven't seen a single dollar." He stepped forward, close enough that she had to fight the urge to step back. "I'm not leaving here without what's owed, or you're leaving instead."

"The ceiling has been leaking for months," Doris said, forcing steadiness into her voice. "I called your maintenance line twice. You never sent anyone."

"That's not what we're talking about right now." Chamberlain's voice rose, sharp. He turned to the men behind him and jerked his chin toward the apartment. "Get her things out, If she won't pay, she won't stay."

The men started forward.

Dennis stepped into the doorway before any of them reached it, his frame filling the space, his voice low and firm. "Nobody is putting a hand on my wife or touching anything in this apartment."

Chamberlain's eyes flicked over him, unimpressed. "And who exactly are you?"

"Her husband."

"Well, husband," Chamberlain said, saying the word like it meant nothing to him, "then you can be the one to explain to me why I haven't seen rent in three months. Either you pay what's owed right now, or I have every right to remove her from this property. That's the law."

"You want to talk about rights?" Dennis' voice came out sharp, his eyes narrowed. "She's been living under a ceiling that's been rotting for months. Your own maintenance line ignored her twice. You knew and did nothing. That's not a property you rented her. That's a hazard you let her raise a child in."

"I don't care what you call it," Chamberlain snapped. "Rent is rent, pay what's owed or get out."

"We're leaving today either way," Dennis said. "But you're not getting a single dollar for a ceiling that could've come down on my son's head while he slept."

Chamberlain's face reddened. "You think you can just walk in here and tell me how my property works? I'll have you arrested for obstruction. I'll have her arrested for nonpayment, try me."

"Try it," Dennis said, and there was nothing in his voice that sounded like a bluff.

Something about the stillness in him seemed to unsettle Chamberlain more than shouting would have. He turned instead toward his men, jaw clenched. "What are you all standing there for? Get her things, and if he gets in the way, handle him too."

One of the men, the biggest of the four, reached past Dennis toward Doris, his hand closing around her wrist hard enough that she gasped and Liam, standing motionless in the hallway behind her, screamed, "Mommy!"

Dennis moved before the sound finished leaving the boy's mouth.

He caught the man's arm at the elbow and wrist, and the crack that followed was loud enough that it echoed off the narrow hallway walls. The man dropped, howling and cradling the arm that no longer bent where it was supposed to.

The other three stiffened for half a second, and Chamberlain's face went from red to ashen in the same breath.

"Get him," Chamberlain barked, though his voice had lost its earlier certainty. "All of you, now!"

The three remaining men lunged at once.

It was over before Doris could pull Liam fully behind her and closed his eyes.

Dennis moved through them the way water moves through cracks, fast, no wasted motion. One man went down with a strike to the ribs that folded him in half. Another hit the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the plaster before sliding to the floor. The third didn't even get his hands up before Dennis had him on his knees, arm twisted behind his back, face pressed against the hallway carpet.

Silence dropped over the room, broken only by the groaning of four men sprawled across the floor and the rain still lashing the broken roof above them.

Chamberlain stood in the doorway, his umbrella forgotten and dropped at his side, cold sweat sliding down the side of his face despite the chill in the air. His eyes moved from his men to Dennis, and whatever confidence he'd walked in with had drained out of him completely.

"Wh… what are you?" he stammered, backing toward the door. "Who are you?"

Dennis straightened, stepped over the man still groaning at his feet, and looked at Chamberlain with the kind of expression that was somehow worse than rage.

"Someone who's done watching people like you decide who deserves to be treated like they matter," he said.

His hand shot out and closed Chamberlain's collar, dragging him half off his feet, close enough that the man's back hit the doorframe. Chamberlain clawed uselessly at Dennis's fist, his polished shoes scraping against the wall, finding no ground to plant on.

"Please," Chamberlain choked out, nothing like the man who'd been pounding on the door minutes earlier. "Don't hurt me, i was only doing what I was paid to do."

The words landed sharply and were impossible to take back.

Dennis raised his brow. Behind him, Doris looked at the man without uttering a word.

"Paid," Dennis repeated. His grip tightened until Chamberlain's face flushed red. "Paid by who?"

Chamberlain's eyes darted to Doris, then back to Dennis, terror winning out over whatever loyalty he thought he owed anyone.

"Your stepmother," he blurted. "Doris's stepmother. She paid me to make things bad here, to push you both out with nowhere to go. She said once you had nothing left, you'd have no choice but to come crawling back to her.”

Doris's arms tightened around Liam, her face draining of colour. “Camilla,” She muttered silently

Dennis didn't loosen his grip. His eyes had turned cold and dark.

"Please," Chamberlain begged, "let me go, and I will never come back to ask for any rent again. You can stay as you wish. If you want, I'll hand over the property to you, the deed, everything, just let me go." His eyes darted between Dennis's face and the fist still wrapped in his collar, searching for any sign it was working.