Page 10 of Threaded Lies

She knows that better than anyone.

“I’m in a fucking shitty mood. You probably want to stay away from me.” That’s about as nice as I can be right now.

“You need to go touch some grass, Holden. Remember the reason you’re here.”

I glare at her. “Don’t think for one second I’ve forgotten the why.” But while I might say the words, I also snatch my keys off my desk and walk past her without saying another word.

Or admitting she might be right.

I drive through the well-maintained streets of the town I despise, passing a billboard advertising Rhett Rothschild for city council, before heading across the river and over the pothole-filled, graffiti-ridden ones I feel more at home in. Past a cemetery and a headstone I still can’t bring myself to visit. And I end up staring at the only place there is green grass in this whole goddamn town—if you can call the crabgrass- and weed-filled baseball field actual grass.

But the state of the field doesn’t seem to matter to the kids and teens who are on it in their mismatched uniforms and playing with secondhand gear.

There’s a freedom here. To be who you are away from the depressing confines of your dilapidated or dangerous apartment complex. To impress the girls who are giggling in the stands and watching your every move, or to trash-talk without the consequences of what happens beyond the chalk lines. To have a chance to be anything but the kid who goes to bed hungry at night or whose mom hustles for drugs or who’s left alone to fend for themselves more times than not.

It’s the one little piece you can control when everything else in your life feels so out of your control.

I know this firsthand.

But here I sit just beyond the outfield fence in my luxury SUV that costs more than most of these families make in several years’ time, and I find an odd peace that I can’t explain.

The game plays on absently in front of me. Balls and strikes seem like life-or-death matters to these kids when they most likely know from experience that they aren’t.

But they suspend disbelief. They pretend.

Just like I pretend that all of this shit isn’t my fault. Rowan. Her complications. Letting her in. And now needing to make sure she stays the fuck out of everything.

I’m not a forgiving man. And yet … Christ.

Rowan.

I run a hand through my hair and replay the events of the past few months in my head.

Past few months? More like the events that took place when Chad and Rhett hit and killed my brother, Mason, all those years ago. The ones that only became more real when the police let them off with zero repercussions, no doubt because their families are corrupt royalty in this goddamn town.

To think how long I watched from afar. How I waited to amass my own empire, my own success, all while trying to figure out the best way to take down the smarmy fuckers who ruined my world.

To show them that there are consequences to every action. And since the law in this town didn’t give them to them, I took matters into my own hands.

Revenge isn’t a word I subscribe to. More like getting what the fuck you’re due. Finally having to pay for the suffering, for the pain, for the life-altering events they set into place.

Not revenge, no. More like fucking karma.

Who knew that a casual, late-night check-in of the Westmore duo would give me the opening I needed to set the wheels in motion?

A few keystrokes to slip behind a firewall were all I needed. Rhett Rothschild and Chadwick Williams in financial peril that they were hiding not only from the world but from their families? My opening.

A bit more research showed that the men had leveraged everything on a shit purchase. A quick buck they’d planned to turn on a deal that went sour because they were so pompous, so fucking arrogant, that they thought they were untouchable by ill fortune so they never did their research or read the fine print.

Imagine that.

The purchase of TinSpirits was only the means to an end. Controlling ownership in one of the two places they were siphoning money was just the start.

And now that I have them by the balls, I plan to squeeze them until it hurts.

Until they beg for mercy and know an iota of the pain they’ve caused me. And I sure as hell plan on giving them an extra twist as a fuck you from all of us little people who used to work at the Westmore Country Club who they treated as less than simply because we weren’t them.

Expect the unexpected. Isn’t that how I’ve lived my life? Then how the hell did I not expect Rowan? Meeting her. Wanting her. Knowing I needed to stay away from her. And then fucking caving despite every part of me knowing I shouldn’t.