“Hey, asshole,” Riley spoke again, raising his voice just a tiny bit.
Riley didn’t raise his voice. Brent had never seen him this quietly pissed in his entire life.
That got Tom’s attention.
“You wanna look at me while I’m talking to you?” Riley asked. “How much?”
“Twenty.”
“Grand?” Riley asked.
That was a lot of money. It was more than he’d put in initially, and more than Brent had been expecting to pay, but by now… yeah, that was probably the value of Tom’s half of the business.
Brent couldn’t even shut it down without him, so Tom kind of had him over a barrel. Anything other than an amicable resolution would mean months in court, and Brent couldn’t afford to be out of work for that long.
Not to mention all the goodwill he’d lose, and the cost of going through it, and the risk that he’d end up having to pay Tom anyway.
Besides, he wanted Tom out of his hair.
He just didn’t have twenty grand, and he had no idea where to get it.
“No, twenty popsicle sticks. What are you, an idiot?”
“Don’t talk to him like that,” Brent said, his heart pounding in his chest. He wasn’t good at standing up for himself, and he wasn’t great at standing up for Riley, either.
Riley pushed his chair away from the table, giving Brent’s hand one last squeeze before standing.
He went to the spare change bowl on the kitchen counter and grabbed the keys to the RV.
Then, to Brent’s surprise, he tossed them at Tom. “That RV outside has been well maintained and it’s not all that old. It should easily be worth that, and you can walk away with it right now if you sign all the papers Brent needs you to.”
“Seriously?” Tom asked. “Is this a joke?”
“What, are you suddenly afraid of placing classified ads?” Riley raised an eyebrow. “That’s the offer. Otherwise, we take this to court and all the gritty details get out. As it stands, your cooperation buys our silence.”
Tom sat back, looking between Riley and Brent, first incredulously, and then thoughtfully. Brent could practically hear the gears turning in his head.
“What am I signing?” he asked after a few long moments, turning the RV keys over in his hand.
“You’re selling me your half of the business, all ties severed. You’ll have no claim on any part of it.And, you’re signing divorce papers,” Brent said, recovering from the surprise of Riley offering up his RV.
He owed that much to Rose. They’d both been stupid, and maybe if she hadn’t felt trapped into a relationship with him, this would never have happened. The least he could do was make sure she got out of it without too much suffering.
“And this would be for a settlement where I get nothing, right?”
Brent took the wedding ring Rose had given him out of his pocket. “No, you get this. Since I’m pretty sure it’s fake, you’re welcome to it.”
That was Tom’s punishment for all this. His scheme hadn’t worked, and he wasn’t going to be welcome in town anymore. For Brent, that was enough. He didn’t want revenge, but he didn’t want Tom getting away with all the hurt he’d caused without any consequences, either.
This felt fair. It felt like justice, or as close to it as they could get.
“Bear in mind that Rose’s family can afford the kind of lawyers who’ll rip you a new one,” Riley said.
Brent didn’t laugh, but he only barely managed to stop himself. Riley wasn’t in the habit of being gentle with people he didn’t like.
There weren’t a lot of people in that category, but once someone got on Riley’s bad side, he was merciless about it.
They usually ended up there because of something they’d done to Brent. Riley had always been his defender.
