“Beck was supposed to do it,” Walker said, throwing me under the bus.
“And this is why,” Greg stated, “we are going with my plan. Your assistant with benefits believes her stepfather is some sort of immortal monster, but really, he is just a man with a bunch of debt. Those types of people are the easiest to manipulate.”
Logically, I knew he was probably right, but it was still infuriating.
We spent the next few hours with Josh and Eric, working with them to craft a contract for the stepfather to sign. He would accept the payment in exchange for testifying that I was the best person to adopt the girls, and he would also post a statement and video apologizing for his past lies.
“Any final thoughts from the resident financial expert?” Greg asked, daring me to argue with him.
“We’ll want to put the money in an escrow account,” I said begrudgingly, “to be distributed over a certain period of time, just to make sure he doesn’t backtrack.”
“It will take a bit to set that up, right?” Josh asked me, making a note on the draft of the contract.
“I’ll start working on it,” I promised.
It was late in the afternoon when I headed back to the condo. I fumed as I looked over the paperwork for the escrow account in the car. I was going to pay Enola and Annie’s uncle a million dollars. I could have used that money for so much else. Shit, I would rather have paid lawyers to take Alistair down.
If Alistair hadn’t shown up, I never would have had to pay it at all.
Tess wasn’t back yet. I had several missed messages from her. I still needed to fire her. Owen had left me a cryptic message wanting me to call him. I was sure that Walker had talked to him about Tess.
I just needed a little more time until I could resolve the issue with Alistair.
I set coffee on to boil. I needed to do some of my actual work this evening, and the girls would be home soon. They had stayed late at Svensson Investment to work on their app.
The doorbell rang as I was pouring myself a cup of coffee.
It better not be one of those crazy seniors. I cannot deal with them today.
My face fell in shock when I realized who was there.
“Alistair,” I said, opening the door. “And Shannyn?” I curled back my upper lip. “You have some fucking nerve coming here.”
“Look,” Alistair said, “I think there might have been some misunderstandings.”
“Things got out of hand,” Shannyn added.
“You went after my family,” I told them. Fuck what Greg thought—I wasn’t dealing with these people at all. They had no shame. The fact that they showed up here at my home was proof that paying them off wasn’t going to do any good. We needed to crush them.
“You better leave before I call the police,” I growled.
“We weren’t trying to mess with your family,” Shannyn said, tone conciliatory. “It was about Tess. She was such a spoiled, awful stepsister. She was a bully to me and mean to me. I was just trying to hurt her like she hurt me. You and your family were caught in the cross fire, and I sincerely apologize.”
“She’s manipulative, just like her mom,” the girls’ uncle interjected. “She has such a bad attitude. She hates all men. She was just horrific to live with, especially after her mother died, and I was left alone to raise her and Shannyn by myself.”
“She made up this fantastical lie that I was stealing things from her. She destroyed everything in the house that her mom left,” Shannyn said in a rush, “because she didn’t want me to have any of it. And I did consider her my mom, and I don’t have anything left from her.” She dabbed her eyes.
I looked between the two of them. I had no idea where this was going. Was Shannyn trying to convince me to believe that everything she had said about Tess was true?
As if.
I knew Tess, and that didn’t sound like her at all.
“I just wanted to explain and say I’m sorry,” Shannyn said, blowing her nose. “And we will of course be issuing a statement saying that it was all lies and our accounts were hacked. We won’t fight you for custody of the girls.”
“Oh,” I said, confused. “Well, thank you?”
“Of course!” Shannyn smiled. Then she looked over my shoulder and gasped dramatically. “The painting!”
