My heart hurts for what I’ve found, and I need to find Maddox so we can talk about this. The ranch is in trouble.
Big trouble.
I can help him, but he needs to get on board with my plan.
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
I jerk at the anger coming my way from Maddox. I meet his gaze as he stalks deeper into the room.
“I’m going through the books,” I answer, stating the obvious, getting to my feet. “We seriously need to talk about them.
“The books aren’t your concern, Della,” he snaps, eyes narrowed, hands firmly on his hips.
“This is my ranch as well, Maddox.”
My heart isn’t just beating fast now, it’s racing a million miles a second.
“Not for long. I’m buying you out.” My stomach twists at the disgusted sneer on my brother’s lip.
Those beats went completely still, my heart plummeting to my stomach. “What? How? There’s no way you can buy me out. You’re tapped out. You have no capital. Hell, I don’t even know how you’re paying the staff.”
“I have an investor. They are going to buy your share.”
The way he says it so matter-of-factly, as if he has it all figured out.
“You have an investor,” I parrot. “Who?”
“That’s not your concern. They’re good for the money. Won’t gyp you a dime.”
“I said, who?”
“The Fallen Demons MC.”
My brother couldn’t have hurt me more if he’d hit me. I refuse to show him my anguish at the bomb he’s dropped.
“Well, I hate to break it to you and your biker friends, but I’m not selling my half,” I tell him, planting my hands on the table. “I can help you here. We don’t need to bring in outsiders.” I know I can.
“Della, you’re a fucking outsider yourself. You can’t sweep in here like some fucking hero when you don’t know shit about how this place works. Riding horses and cleaning stalls when you were a teen doesn’t qualify you as the savior of Meadows Ranch. I’m buying you out. End of fucking story. Then you can go back to your happy little life and keep doing whatever the hell it is you did before.”
I flinch at his words, so angry, it feels as though he slapped me.
I shake my head, tears I’ve held back for so long stream down my face. “What life? What job? I have nothing.”
“What are you talking about?”
Wrapping my arms tight around myself, I let the sobs rake through me. “You know nothing about what I’ve gone through. You don’t know how unhappy I’ve been. How coming home felt like peace to me. A peace I haven’t felt since I was raped my senior year at college,” I all but scream the final words.
“Okay, then tell me. What have you gone through that’s been so bad? Huh?
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not selling, Maddox, don’t think you can convince me.”
I start to walk past him, only for my brother to stop me. “Fuck that, Della. You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and just walk away from me. If you want me to understand you, you need to start fucking talking. I’m not a mind reader.”
Memories of that night flash in my head that I’ve kept locked away for so long. Stepping away from Maddox, wrapping my arms around myself as I relive that day and the days that followed while telling him.
“My senior year, I was working on two degrees, burning both ends of the candle. I wasn’t playing around. My roommate saw I was stressed out and convinced me to go to a party.” I squeeze my eyes shut and keep going.
“Come on, Dels, you need to unwind, have some fun,” Cameron says, her voice bubbly as it always is. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who was always cheerful.
