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“Two years ago.”
Alana reared her head back in shock. “So you have been looking at our finances for two fucking years and never noticed thousands of dollars of profit missing every year?!” she screamed at Freya.
She lifted her hands. “He hid previous payments! How was I supposed to know!?”
Alana stood up, slamming her hands against the table. “Oh, I don’t know, actually look at the costs and profits from years past and do the math?!”
Freya jumped up, slamming her fists as well. “It was all hidden! He made it seem like we didn’t even have that profit!”
“Aren’t you supposed to actually be good at this stuff with your fancy business degree?”
“Are you blind!? I never got that business degree,” Freya barked. “I didn’t finish school because you left.”
She froze. “You…didn’t finish school?”
“Of course not! Someone had to take over. Someone had to hold this family together.”
“Hold it together? Are you serious? You can’t even come down to the dinner table anymore!”
“That’s because I’m trying to figure out how the fuck we’re going to fix this!”
“And you think keeping secrets is the way to keep the family together?!”
That shut her up.
Light sniffles broke the uncomfortable silence.
“Are we going to lose the farm?” Sophie asked meekly, tears streaking down her cheeks.
Freya rubbed her forehead. “Klaus said we need to pay him by the end of harvest.”
The soil. She turned to her father. “Are we close?”
Otto hesitated, then shook his head.
“What’s going to happen?” Sophie asked.
Freya closed her eyes, her body going rigid as she shared the final piece of information. “He will commandeer the property, demolish the barn, the shed, and the house, then plant more vines for Kasner.”
Sophie covered her mouth and sobbed.
Freya’s demeanor softened. She rounded the table, arm held out to her. “Bean—”
Sophie jumped away from her grasp and bolted out the screen door, the smack as it snapped into place making the three of them wince.
Eventually Alana broke the silence, turning to her father. “You should have told us, from the beginning.”
His eyes misted. “I know, darling. I’m so sorry.”
She curtly nodded. “No more secrets. The both of you.”
Freya replied with a single nod.
“We’re not giving up yet.” Alana pointed to her father. “But you need to tell Leo. Tonight.”
She was on her third cigarette by the time Leo arrived on the patio. Otto shook his hand and handed him a tumbler with two fingers of brown liquid, likely the whiskey from Wheated Distillery down the road. His friend Nolan owned the place, so if Otto wasn’t drinking Marien wine, he sipped exclusively on Nolan’s Rye.
They leaned against the patio railing looking out to the vineyard as they spoke. Alana heard murmuring but couldn’t catch the conversation clearly enough. She waited patiently, and when Leo’s shoulder’s slumped, she knew.
