“I can’t do that,” I said. “I’m not in a position to lend out that kind of money.”
Which wasn’t exactly true.
I had it, but lending money to Kyle felt like pouring water into a bucket with no bottom, and I’d spent three years learning to be precise with where my money went.
He got quiet.
Then he said, “All right, no worries.”
But it wasn’t no worries.
Within a week, my mom called me.
She didn’t ask how I was doing.
She went straight in.
“Kyle told me you turned him down. Tyler, he’s your brother. He needed help, and you said no.”
“I said I wasn’t in a position to lend that kind of money.”
“You have tenants paying you rent every month. Don’t tell me you don’t have it.”
“Having it and being in a position to lend it are two different things, Mom.”
She made a sound.
Half sigh, half scoff.
“Your brother would do it for you.”
I almost said something I’d regret.
Instead, I said, “I hope he figures it out.”
And I hung up.
What nobody in my family knew was that Kyle’s financial problems were deeper than a patio and a tax bill.
Because I’d been paying attention.
And the numbers I was seeing from public records, from things Aunt Linda mentioned, from Kyle’s own offhand comments, painted a picture that was a lot worse than anyone wanted to admit.
But nobody was asking me, so I kept quiet.
Let me fast-forward a bit because the next few years were mostly just me doing the same thing over and over while nobody noticed.
Buy a property, fix it up, rent it out, repeat.
It sounds boring when I say it like that, and honestly, it kind of was.
But boring compounds in ways that exciting never does.
By year seven, I was 34.
I owned six properties, 15 rental units total, all held inside the LLC, all cash flow positive.
My net worth on paper was just north of $1.4 million.
And my monthly rental income after expenses and mortgage payments was clearing about $7,200.
Marissa and I had gotten married the year before.
Small ceremony, no fuss.
We honeymooned in Portugal and paid for the whole trip in cash without thinking twice about it.
Nobody in my family had any idea.
And that’s because I’d never given them a reason to suspect anything.
I still lived in the original duplex.
Still drove the Civic, though by now it had 140,000 miles and a rattle in the dashboard that I’d grown emotionally attached to.
Marissa and I had upgraded the interior of our unit.
New countertops, better appliances, but from the outside, it looked like the same place I’d moved into at 27.
Here’s what was happening on Kyle’s end.
Kyle had refinanced his house two years after getting it.
Chapter 7: The Brother’s Downfall
My parents had given it to him free and clear.
No mortgage.
And the first thing he did was take out a $180,000 loan against it to renovate the kitchen, finish the basement, and buy a boat.
I am not making up the boat part.
It was a 22-foot bowrider that he docked at a marina 45 minutes from his house.
He used it maybe six times.
The refinance meant Kyle now had a monthly mortgage payment on a house that had originally been a gift.
That payment, combined with his car loan, credit card debt, and lifestyle spending, was eating him alive.
But he kept up appearances.
New clothes, restaurants, social media posts from weekend getaways.
If you followed Kyle online, you’d think he was thriving.
In reality, he was sinking.
I knew this because Aunt Linda knew this.
And Aunt Linda couldn’t keep information inside her body for more than 72 hours.