Chapter Thirty-Four
An attorney contacted Rin much sooner than expected. By express courier, she now had a copy of her uncle’s will, naming her as sole heir and primary beneficiary to the Nakamura estate, with only minor monetary allotments bequeathed to a few key players – one of which was her uncle’s assistant, who, thankfully, had not bothered Rin further. She had read about her uncle’s death on-line. They were calling it an accidental shooting while the man had been hunting at a mountain retreat in Vermont. The article had listed the date and time for the funeral as well as visiting hours, but Rin had not gone.
Now, as she scanned the will and its multitude of attached pages, Rin’s mind boggled. In addition to being the majority shareholder in her uncle’s multi-billion dollar company, she also now owned properties worldwide, a page or more for each was attached, and included a laundry list of inventoried contents and their values, including priceless works of art, antiquities, vehicles… the list went on.
Surprisingly, her uncle had not made the will provisional, forcing her to step into a leadership role within the company or forfeit the wealth. An oversight on his part? Or was he so arrogant, so confident in his own power that the thought of her disobeying him had never crossed his mind? After spending time in his company, Rin would put money on the latter. She was female after all, and to his thinking, should have been raised to obey her elders. Of course, having met her, he may have seen the error of such thinking, and had he been given the opportunity, would have changed the will to include the caveat – of that she had no doubt. It was a moot point however, Rin was the beneficiary of everything that had belonged to Makoto Nakamura. And she didn’t want any of it.
The male was a traitor to his family and his kind. She wanted nothing from him. In fact, it would give her great pleasure to know he was looking down from the afterlife and seeing her thumb her nose at him. She’d ranted to Mike, pacing the loft, cursing her uncle, and generally venting her spleen, but prepared to hear him tell her that she was crazy not to accept what her uncle’s will had handed her. Instead, he’d surprised her. Once she’d worn herself out from her little tirade, Mike had merely pulled her close, kissed her sweetly, and said, “Whatever you decide, Rin, I’ve got your back.”
It was Sherry Pierce that had been the voice of logic. Needing a lawyer’s help to weed through all that legalese, Rin had gone straight to Sherry. The she-wolf may not be fond of a Kitsune living in her town, but she was very good at her job, and Rin was now her client.
The female had pinned Rin with those icy blue eyes of hers and stated quite plainly. “Clearly you’re angry, and rightly so, but you’re also being stupid.”
Rin had just sat there and blinked, not sure how to respond to that bald statement.
Sherry sighed, rolled her eyes, and launched into an explanation simple enough for a child to grasp. “Your uncle built an empire to make himself feel like a king. Everything he did was for his benefit, his greed. Wouldn’t it hurt him more if you turned things around to benefit others? Think of what you could do with all of that wealth. How many lives you could change for the better.”
Rin’s head slowly nodded as each word penetrated her brain to clear the haze of anger she’d been operating under. Her greatest desire may be a normal life, but she could still do great things as well – the two weren’t mutually exclusive.
“I have no desire to have anything to do with his company.” Rin stated clearly.
Sherry made a dismissive gesture. “Not a problem. You can sell off your shares.” Those icy eyes went sly as the lawyer’s smile turned evil. “Didn’t you say your uncle was quite adamant that your bloodline be the primary shareholder? Well, there’s your first F you, right there.”
Sherry Pierce continued making suggestions of what she would do if she were in this situation and Rin paid attention. Unlike Rin, Sherry was looking at the big picture rather than through a little peephole of anger and bruised emotion.
It took quite a bit of time, but when all was said and done, the shares had been sold off for a tidy profit that would be funneled into an account for Alek Stepanov and his team. Like Rin, those males had also been captives of the fur traders, but once freed, they had chosen to devote their lives to bringing the organization down. That money would go a long way to achieving that goal. And wasn’t it poetic that money earned from dealings with the fur traders would now be used to destroy them.
The properties and their contents had been auctioned off, much of the proceeds to be donated to worthy causes that her uncle would have disdained. Things like homeless shelters, battered women’s shelter, and soup kitchens, children’s hospitals, and educational programs for the underprivileged and minorities. Rin gleefully signed the checks.
The collection of vehicles her uncle had owned were auctioned off as well, all save one. Knowing her mate’s love of muscle cars, Rin had scoured the list and looked up the details on each vehicle. One vehicle on the list had particularly caught Rin’s eye and she decided to keep it in order to gift it to Mike on their wedding day. A 1970 Dodge Coronet. There had only been two of that model made that year, and through her uncle, Rin now owned one of them.
While she took a particular vindictive pleasure in giving her uncle’s wealth away, the pleasure Rin found in planning her wedding to Mike stemmed from pure love. With Ginny’s assistance she had scoured through bridal magazines and on-line sites, but the more she looked, the more she realized that she just didn’t want a big fancy wedding. The elaborate dress, the expensive floral arrangements, the fancy cake… they just weren’t what she and Mike were about. Small, beautiful in its simplicity, that’s who they were and that’s exactly what she wanted: A small wedding, surrounded by the pack that had adopted her.