Chapter Thirteen
Rory
ON AUTOPILOT, I LEFT MY father’s office and got back in Raven’s car. Once I was behind the wheel, I just sat there, staring off into space as the realization I was going to lose everything hit me squarely in the chest.
If my father had threatened me, I would have just laughed in his face and walked away. Instead, he’d threatened the one person in the world I couldn’t breathe without. I couldn’t let him do that to Matt, I had to protect him.
I’d told my father that I would do what he wanted, but that I had to break it off with Matt in person. If I didn’t, he wouldn’t accept it, and even if I did go back to my father’s house, he would find a way to get to me. Dad hadn’t been happy about it, but he knew he had me right where he wanted me, so he had given in.
Swallowing around the tightness in my throat, I finally pulled into traffic and headed back toward the clubhouse. A few blocks later, I saw Gracie standing on the sidewalk outside of Mr. Jenkins’s office with Hawk, and I remembered that I had to deal with the paperwork for my mother’s bequest to me.
I parked Raven’s car right in front of where they were standing, causing them both to turn their heads. Hawk frowned, thinking it was his sister, and moved over to open my door. “Everything okay?” he asked when he stepped back to let me out.
No, I wanted to sob. Everything is wrong. Everything I love is being pulled from my arms, and I’m helpless to do anything to stop it.
“Mr. Jenkins asked me to sign papers yesterday. I was already in town and decided to go ahead and take care of it now.” My gaze went to Gracie, who gave me a small but warm and welcoming smile. Unfortunately, it didn’t even come close to melting the coldness that seemed to have invaded every one of my organs. “Is he busy? I…I can come back if he is.”
She shook her head. “Even if he is, I can help you.” Standing on tiptoes, she kissed Hawk on the lips. “Be careful, okay? I love you.”
“I’m picking you up and taking you over to see Doc at four. Be ready.”
“I told you I’m fine,” she grumbled.
“You’ve lost too much weight. You’ve been sick, and you refuse to eat. You’re going, woman. End of discussion.”
I turned my eyes away when he bent his head to brush his lips across hers again. That kiss said everything that no words had the ability to. It said that Gracie was his light on cold, dark days. That she was everything sweet and good in his world, and that he would kill anyone or anything that ever tried to take her away from him. It was the kind of kiss Matt had given me countless times, and it broke my heart a little more to see someone else experience it now.
“Fine,” Gracie said with a breathless sigh. “I’ll be ready, but I’m telling you it’s just stress.”
“Love you,” he called as he got onto his hog.
She waved. “I love you too.”
Turning back to me, her smile still in place, she motioned me into the lawyer’s office building. “Jenkins told me he was putting everything together for you this morning so it would be ready. I think it’s all set to be signed. Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”
I shook my head and clasped my hands together to hide the fact that my fingers were trembling. Now that I was away from my father, the nervousness had faded, but I was still coming down from the adrenaline I’d been feeling during our meeting. I felt weak now, my legs barely holding me up. I hated how helpless I felt, how my father was making me feel.
And I fucking I hated that now I doubted Matt. That all I could see when I closed my eyes was him with Steph, doing all the things he did to me in bed.
“Okay then, let’s go into my office.” She stopped long enough to let the receptionist know what she was doing and then led the way into her office.
Gracie moved to take the seat behind her desk, shifting a few heavy files out of her way as she dug out the documents needed. “Jenkins told me the basics of your mother’s will. She left the majority of everything she owned to you, but other than a monthly allowance, it’s been in a trust until your twenty-first birthday. Which is next week?”
“Um, yeah. That’s it in a nutshell.” I was slower to sit down, but once I was off my feet, I felt like the weight of the world was pressing down on me. The reins of control I had on my emotions were beginning to slip, and I realized that dealing with this right now hadn’t been the best idea. Remembering my mother—aching to have her hold me and make all my problems go away—was not going to make the maelstrom of craziness already swarming around in my head any easier to deal with. “Mr. Jenkins said I needed to sign some papers.”
“Right.” She flipped through the documents, her eyes scanning over each page as she made sure everything was in order. When she got to another page, her eyes widened, and she lifted them to me. “There’s a note here that says your father has already been questioning Jenkins about the money. He’s provided a bank account and routing number for the money to be deposited. Is this really where you want the money to go?”
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but part of me was still stunned by what she had just said. My father was so desperate to get his hands on all that money that he was trying to trick my mother’s lawyer into putting all of it into an account I probably would never be able to access. This, on top of everything else, was too much, and I felt the tears well up in my eyes, impossible to hold back.
“I-I…” I swallowed, but it suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. Nothing would come in, nothing going out. I felt dizzy and knew if I had been standing, I would have fallen on my face.
Through the blur of tears and panic, I saw Gracie jump to her feet and race around to crouch down in front of me. “Easy, sweetie. You’re having a panic attack.” She put her hand on my chest, her fingers tapping steadily. “Close your eyes and just focus on my fingers. Feel the rhythm.”
My eyes clenched shut and I tried to focus, but all I could see was a slideshow of the day’s events flying through my mind. Waking up beside Matt. Having coffee with Raven, Flick, and Aggie. Walking into my father’s office and finding Steph and her vile father there. Finding out Matt had slept with her—and probably Casandra as well, even though he had said he had considered us always together the entire time I had been gone. My heart cracking open, followed quickly by my father’s threats. Knowing that Matt was lost to me forever. Finding out that my father was trying to steal everything my mother had left for me and me alone…
Gracie slowed the rhythm of her fingers, but she made the taps stronger. I tried to clear my head, tried to erase it all, if only for a moment. My lungs burned from lack of oxygen, and the panic only increased.
“Listen to my voice. You’re okay, Rory. Nothing can hurt you here. You’re safe.” Her tone was soft, soothing, but commanding.
Tears slipped through my lashes and spilled down my face. My lips and chin were trembling so hard my teeth chattered together, but somehow, I was finally able to focus on her steady fingers and her voice, so full of authority, but so alluring.
When my lungs finally filled, I gasped in pain, my chest throbbing. I covered my face with my hands and just let go, tired of acting strong when I wasn’t. The sobs took over, but I was deaf to the sounds I was making. My heart was broken, shattered into even smaller pieces than it had been the first time I’d had to let Matt go.
It wasn’t fucking fair. Why did I have to give up everything, while my father got it all? Why was I the one left with nothing, while he got to play dirty and rule the goddamn world?
A cold, damp cloth was pressed to the back of my neck, jerking me out of my mental tantrum. I lifted soaked eyes to find Mr. Jenkins standing beside where Gracie was still crouched in front of me. Embarrassment made my cheeks turn scarlet, and I averted my eyes, not wanting either of them to know just how weak my father could make me—how much of a victim he had turned me into.
“Your mother and I were friends about a hundred or so years ago,” Mr. Jenkins informed me with a concerned smile. “Or at least, it feels like it was that long ago. When she moved here with your father, I was one of the first people to welcome her into the community. She was a good woman. Strong, determined, maybe a little naïve at first, but smart.”
A frown made my brow pucker, and I wiped my snotty nose with the tissue Gracie offered. “She was the b-best woman I ever knew.”
“I agree,” he said, dropping casually down into the chair beside me. “Which was why she came to me to handle her will. She wanted to make sure that the most important person in her life was taken care of. That your father couldn’t trap you like he trapped her.”
“T-too late,” I whispered brokenly.
“Only death can make something too late, sweetie,” Gracie assured me with a kind smile.
“He’s making me leave Matt,” I confessed, letting the words spill out of me as easily as the tears were falling from my eyes. “He… He said if I didn’t give Matt up, he would charge him with the rape of Stephanie Campbell and her friend Casandra.”
They both went quiet, and when I glanced at Gracie, I could see how tense her shoulders had become. “Matt would never do that,” she bit out.
“I-I know,” I agreed. “But how many people in this town would believe Matt over my father? Campbell even said he had pictures of Steph and her friend beaten bloody.”
“What’s his agenda?” Mr. Jenkins asked, his eyes unreadable, his voice neutral.
“He hates Matt and every other member of the MC,” I said with a shrug. “Without them here, he can finally run Creswell Springs the way he has always envisioned.”
“You mean by tearing down Hannigans’ and the strip club and the clubhouse. Building hundred-dollar-a-plate restaurants and five-star resorts. He wants to run off anyone who doesn’t earn more than half a million a year and make Creswell Springs into a country club town,” the old lawyer spat out.
“Basically,” I mumbled.
“Did you know about the bank account he wanted me to have your mother’s money transferred into?” he demanded, but his tone was less harsh now, kinder. I shook my head. “He tried to steal from you.”
“Nothing unusual about that, Mr. Jenkins. He’s been keeping the monthly allowance my mother provided for me for himself, and all I’ve had to live on is the limited credit cards he gave me.”
“I’m sorry, Rory, but your father is nothing but a greedy bastard,” Gracie said as she straightened.
“Agreed.”
“I don’t want you to worry,” Mr. Jenkins told me as he shifted in his chair. “I’m not going to let him get his filthy hands on your money.”
I slouched down in my chair, feeling both physically and emotionally drained. “I honestly don’t care if he takes every last dime. I would happily give it all to him if…”
I broke off and jerked upright in the chair, my eyes widening as I realized the answer was so easy. Fuck, why hadn’t I thought of it before?
I knew he wanted that money, but just how badly?
“Mr. Jenkins, how much money did my mother leave for me?” I’d never questioned it, never cared enough to want to know before.
“Somewhere around two hundred and fifty million,” he said with a casual shrug.
I just sat there blinking at the man. My mom had come from old money, and I knew without her ever having to tell me that the majority of the reason my father had married her was because of that. Sure, he’d had his own money, but it had never come close to what my mother was used to.
With the money just sitting in my trust waiting for me to turn twenty-one, Derrick Michaels could surely buy himself the governor’s seat if he wanted it bad enough.
“If…” I paused and licked my lips. My eyes were red-rimmed but dry now. “If my father resigned as mayor, who would take over in his place?” Creswell Springs didn’t have a deputy mayor, thank God. I had little doubt if there were a second-in-command, he would have been just as corrupt as my father.
Jenkins scratched his chin, thinking about my question. “I guess if your father resigned early, there would be a special election to appoint someone in his place.”
“Such as?”
“That I couldn’t tell you.”
“Wh-what about you?” I threw out there.
He snorted, but Gracie was giving him a considering once-over. “No one would vote for me, Rory. They know me too well.”
“Which is exactly why they would vote for you,” his protégé assured him. “I don’t know what Rory is thinking right now. But I have to tell you, Jenkins, if that idiot was out of office and you were up for the position, you would get my vote.”
“That’s not likely to happen, Gracie.”
“Maybe.” A devilish smile started to lift at my lips, and my earlier feelings of being weak and powerless transformed in my chest. Maybe this crazy idea I had wasn’t what my mother had intended when she had left me everything, but she had told me she was giving it to me so that I wouldn’t ever have to worry about being under my father’s thumb again. And that was exactly what that money was going to accomplish. “Maybe not.”
“That smile is kind of terrifying,” Gracie muttered, but her own smile was shining out of her eyes. “Tell me more.”