I felt my eye twitch. “Actually, I do. I get to know it. I own a third of that company. You and dad shut me out of every decision since I moved here—”
“You made that choice, not us.”
I closed my eyes, trying to retain some semblance of control. “You really don’t want to interrupt me right now, mom. I’ve had a bad life and it’s all coming to a precipice right now. So, if I were you, I would beverycareful of how you speak to me.”
She went silent, and I could just imagine her working her jaw, pursing her lips like she always did when I did something she didn’t like. “We needed the money,” she explained carefully. “You are too young to understand—”
“I will bet you any amount of money you want that I know more about this company than you do, seeing as how youdestroyedyour part of it. What? Did the banks not want to give it to you?” I asked and then shook my head. “No, that’s not what I need to know.Whydo you need the money? The company has been overly profitable since long before I was alive and now you need money? What did you do?”
“Your contract kept us from using your third,” she explained. “So, when we ran out, we had to do something else—”
“You shouldn’t have run out,” I said evenly. “That’s the problem, mom. Youshouldn’t have run out. The oil comes and comes and comes, and we sellall of it. All around the world, mom. Everybody needs oil. It’s the one business you can’t fuck up even if you tried.”
“Language.”
“Don’tlecture me on language,” I snarled. “You don’t get that privilege right now. In fact, you don’t get any privilege. We are not mother and daughter. We never have been, but especially right now, you are talking to your business partner—”
“Business partner?” She laughed. “You are a child!”
I worked my jaw, my heart steady, that anger raging.
I pulled the phone away from my ear. “Mr. Kingsmen!”
“Behind you.”
I spun around, my dress spinning with me, to find him sitting on my porch swing just a few feet away.
He smiled, his blue eyes bright. “I don’t move things. You’re doing very well, keep going.”
I straightened, slightly relieved and thankful for his encouragement because I thought I was letting the anger control me too much. I didn’t want it ruining what I wanted to say because I couldn’t control it. “How much did she get from you?” I could pay that debt off to Malachi,nothis son. I could pay everything off, revive the company, and—
“4 million.”
My eyes widened, the air leaving my lungs. I put the phone to my ear, turning away from him. “4 million, mom? What are you doing?”
“We would have been able to save it if we had access to your share,” she said through her teeth.
“I’m glad you didn’t! We would have lost the company. Wewould have lost everything. We would have been the laughing stock of the entire industry.”
“We have lost everything,” she snarled. “We had to sell the house, the cars. We’re living in squalor, baby.”
I sneered. “Wedidn’t lose everything. You did.Youlost it.” I grasped the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes, trying to ignore the roaring in my ears. I remembered the contracts. I remembered going over them meticulously with the family lawyer. I remembered everything.
4 million.
She had borrowed 4 million from Malachi. And I had my suspicions that she would spend most of it within the year due to her lifestyle. 4 million dollars. I could barely breathe.
After a few seconds of focused breathing, I straightened. “I’ll take it,” I told her.
She released a breath of relief. “That is so kind of you. I don’t think they actually sold the house yet, the—”
Of course they didn’t, she had to have bought it back by now. She was lying through her teeth about living in squalor because I very much doubted that she had given anything back to the company. “No, mom. I’m taking the company. You forgot. You must have. Why else would you keep this from me. There’s a stipulation in every single one of our contracts stating that if one party bankrupts their portion of the company, the others absorb it all, leaving the party withnothing. You get nothing, mom. You and dad lose it all. I get it. I get the debt, the employees, I get everything. All of it. Which means that if you don’t send me back whatever you have left of that money, you’re fucked.”
“Olivia,” she warned. “Don’t do this. I will ruin you.”
“You can give it your best shot. While you’re doing that, I’m going to need you to send overeverythingregarding the company to my new address, I’ll send it to you now. And if you can’t seem to find everything, then don’t worry, I own Martintoo. I’ll send him over to safeguard anything you deem unworthy to send my way.” I quickly texted her the address.
“You fucked a prostitute addicted married man,” she told me when I put the phone back to my ear. “You’re a goddamn whore.”
