But then he thought about April flinching away from him on the couch. About Kevin asking if Shane would stay because he was terrified something would happen to his mother. About Sonny's face when Shane had promised to protect his daughter.
"That's on you," Shane said quietly. "Not me. Mom has choices. She can leave you. She can choose to respect the woman I love. She can choose her son over her husband's ego and she knows my brothers and I would protect her from you with everything we have." He met his father's eyes. "But she hasn't taken up my offer and I can’t force her to. And unless she does, unless she's willing to stand up to you and treat April with basic human decency, then yeah—she's not part of my life."
"You're putting her in an impossible position?—"
"No. You are." Shane's voice sharpened. "You're the one who's forcing her to choose. You're the one who's made this family toxic. I'm just refusing to participate anymore."
Daniel's face darkened. "This is about that girl. That trashy wh?—"
"Finish that sentence and I walk out of here right now and send everything I've got to the authorities and to the media." Shane's voice was deadly calm. "Try me."
Daniel's mouth snapped shut.
"April Taylor has more integrity in her little finger than you've had in your entire miserable life," Shane continued. "And her family? The Taylors have built something real in this town. Something that matters. They show up for people. They care. They don't use their position to hurt anyone who threatens their ego."
"How dare you?—"
"How dare I?" Shane laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You want to talk about daring? Let's talk about how you've been running this bank, Dad. Let's talk about the pattern of predatory loans you've issued. Funny how they all seem to target families you have personal grudges against."
"That's slander?—"
"It's documented fact." Shane held up his phone again. "Watchdog's been looking into the bank's practices all morning. We've found fifteen loans with similar structures to the Taylors' and we’re not even done looking. Fifteen families you've trapped in impossible situations because you wanted to punish them for something."
Daniel's face had gone pale. "You don’t know what you’re talking about."
"No? I've got dates. Dollar amounts. Internal emails. And that's just the lending practices." Shane's smile was sharp. "Should we talk about the property on Canyon Road? The one you foreclosed on last year? Interesting how the appraisal came in two hundred thousand under market value. Even moreinteresting how your shell company bought it three months later for a hundred grand less than that."
"You can't prove?—"
"I can prove all of it. LLC registration documents, property records, bank transactions." Shane leaned forward. "You've been using this bank as your personal piggy bank, Dad. Self-dealing, conflicts of interest you never disclosed to the board, collusion with appraisers—take your pick. Any one of these things is enough to interest the FDIC and state banking regulators. All of them together? That's federal prison."
Heavy silence filled the room. Daniel's hands gripped his armrests, knuckles white.
"What do you want, you son of a bitch?" His voice was strangled.
“Don’t insult Mom like that.”
“How much to shut you up, fucker?”
"I already told you. Call Sonny Taylor and tell him there has been a bank error in his favor and their loan is now paid up. And while you're at it, you're going to review every predatory loan on your books and make them right."
"That's—that's impossible?—"
"Then I guess you're going to prison." Shane stood. "Your choice, Dad. Make it quick."
Daniel stared at him for a long moment, something ugly moving behind his eyes. Shane could see him calculating, trying to find an angle, a way to turn this around.
But there wasn't one. They both knew it.
"Fine," Daniel bit out. "I'll call Taylor. Change the terms."
"And the other loans."
"Yes. Fine. The other loans, too."
“And no more of this bullshit going forward.”
“Fine,” Daniel gritted out.
