“Considering that my brother’s company, Svensson PharmaTech, and your grandpappy’s company arecompetitors, I have no problem tanking your share price, which will effectively cut your trust allotments to… oh, let’s say, a generous eighty dollars a month.”
All of them comprehend that number.
“Why are you doing this to us?” one asks.
“We’re ruined!” a woman in a designer dress wails.
A middle-aged man looks like he’s about to faint. “I have bills.”
“You can’t do this.”
“This is criminal.”
“But wait, there’s more!” I cut through the laments. “My other brother owns a reality-TV production company. It’s a joke, really, but he’s always looking for salacious stories, and what’s better than a once-great family fallen on hard times, unable to pay their outstanding hotel bills, forced to hawk their heirloom furniture on the side of the road to scrounge up enough money to pay their college tuition.”
“I’ll have to drop out of college,” a young woman cries. “You’re evil.”
“Now,” I announce over the din. “You’re all wondering why. Why am I doing this? Why you? Jaxon?” I gesture grandly to him. “Would you care to enlighten your family?”
Jaxon’s face is still bruised. He has a black eye and stitches on his temple. He stares mulishly straight ahead.
“I take it you haven’t given your family members the good news yet?”
“How dare you came after my son,” his mom cries.
“Your son is a malignant tumor on society,” I snarl at her. “Over the past several months, he has been stalking, harassing, and threatening my girlfriend, culminating in a physical attack on her on Friday night. As you can imagine,I’m out for my pound of flesh plus interest. Choices have collateral damage.”
Jaxon sits white-faced in his seat while his angry relatives turn on him.
“You can’t do this,” Jaxon rages at me as his cousin hits him with her booklet. “You’re going to hear from my lawyers.” He turns to his lawyers. “I order you to sue him. Stop this!”
“I hope he already paid his bill from your harassment of my girlfriend,” I tell Max. “I know your firm’s not cheap, and Jaxon’s about to experience a severe loss of income.”
The Clarke & Turner legal team is shifting in their seats.
“I don’t think that we can take your lawsuit,” Max finally says to Jaxon.
I smile at Jaxon’s panicking family members.
“Please,” his aunt begs, “have mercy. I can’t give up my house—I’m renovating. I have marble being shipped in from Italy. Punish Jaxon, not us.”
“No one has ever described me as merciful,” I remind her. “In fact, I’ve been described as violent, insane, and excessively brutal.”
“I’ll disown Jaxon,” his mother offers.
“Too little, too late.”
“What if we get rid of him? I just bought a yacht,” his uncle suggests. “International waters are twelve miles out. He gets drunk, has a tragic accident. Bada bing, bada boom!”
“You all handle matters how you see fit.” I sit back in my chair.
“We’re ruined!”
I savor their hysteria, their disarray.
His grandmother hobbles over to me, whacking Jaxon with her cane on the way over. “Mr. Svensson, I implore you to allow us to handle this matter internally.”
“Your grandson cost me my one chance at happiness and attacked the woman I love. She left me because of him,” I growl. “I can’t have a happily ever after, but I can make it rain blood and money.”
