Alonso taunts Gloria, saying that the US’s weak laws can be exploited. Outside, Nico accuses Martine of tipping off the gang to the police visit; she denies it but admits that they may have overheard her phone conversation. Martine then confesses to Gloria that Domingo is actually her husband, claiming that she lied out of shame for taking back an “abuser.”

When the gang leaves together one day, Nico has the locks changed. When they return, the gang smashes the front door and enters anyway. Nico is forced to hand out new keys and mend the door.

Nico meets his father at a Midtown restaurant and explains everything, except his brief affair with Martine. He reveals his failed final attempt: offering Domingo his entire $67,000 inheritance to leave, which Domingo refused. Carlin finds this refusal alarming and suspects a larger scheme. He says that he has connections who can help.

Vanessa’s dog, Kumquat, is kicked by a gang member—Miguel—and later dies during surgery, angering the whole family. Carlin calls Nico with his plan: He and five armed friends will forcibly evict the squatters that night. Nico volunteers to join them, but unarmed.

Nico vaguely warns his mother about an impending rescue and tells her to stay out of the way. That evening, as the group drives to Brooklyn, Martine calls him on the landline. In a flat, toneless voice, she says only that something has happened and tells him to come home. The masked group enters through three doors simultaneously to find the house silent and empty except for Martine, alone at the kitchen table, dazed and bleeding from a head wound.

A shout from upstairs breaks the silence. Against instructions, Nico follows his father and discovers Gloria’s body in her bedroom, shot in the face. Carlin calms Nico. They learn that Martine has not yet called the police, and Carlin asks her not to mention his armed group, who leave before the authorities arrive.

Officers Bower and Patterson respond to Martine’s call. Nico and Carlin establish their alibi: They were together in Manhattan when Martine called and then drove to Brooklyn and found Gloria already dead. Vanessa and Palermo arrive in shock. Palermo explodes with rage, blaming the police for their earlier inaction.

Martine gives her statement. She claims that Gloria screamed at Miguel for kicking Kumquat. Miguel followed Gloria upstairs and attempted to rape her. Martine intervened with a handgun that she had found while doing laundry. Alonso appeared and struggled with Martine for the weapon. During the fight, the gun accidentally discharged, shooting Gloria. Alonso hit Martine with the pistol, leaving her unconscious. When she revived, she overheard the gang deciding to flee; Domingo threatened her life, and all eight men left in a van.

The family is barred from the house during the investigation. Over the following weeks, Nico perceives Martine’s mourning as performative and grows suspicious. The siblings quietly agree that their obligation to Martine has ended. At a meeting at a restaurant, Nico tells Martine that she has one week to vacate the basement. He has developed an alternative theory—that Martine and the gang were in league and murdered his mother, staging her injury to establish innocence—but acknowledges that it lacks a clear motive. His sisters dismiss it as preposterous.

Weeks after Gloria’s death, the family gathers at lawyer Tom Hochman’s office for the will reading. To Nico’s surprise, Martine has been invited. Hochman gives Nico a letter from his mother; seeing her handwriting makes her death feel real for the first time.

The letter reveals that Gloria revised her will in anger after Nico accused Martine of deception. As punishment for his lack of ambition, she left the Ditmas Park house entirely to Martine, suggesting that she turn it into a migrant shelter. Gloria also wrote that she might reverse the decision if her anger cooled. Nico tells Hochman that his mother had mentioned she had done something rash and intended to undo it. However, with no witnesses, this is legally meaningless. After minor bequests, the entire house and its contents go to Martine.

Nico reads Martine’s stunned reaction as performance. The bequest immediately destroys the sisters’ friendship with Martine, but when Nico proposes to his sisters that Martine orchestrated their mother’s murder for the inheritance, they reject the theory as absurd. He acknowledges that the truth is unknowable.

Nico enrolls in an electrician apprenticeship, moves in with roommates, and builds a new social life. Months later, while walking through Ditmas Park, he sees his old house. Domingo is mowing the lawn while children play in the backyard. Martine, visibly pregnant, is hanging laundry. Nico calculates the timing and concludes that his own paternity isn’t impossible. He walks away, deciding that whatever the truth is, both he and Martine’s household have found their version of “a better life” (290).