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My face goes white, and little black spots dot my vision.

I feel like I might faint as I realize what this means.

The twenty million dollars I thought I had to wait three more years to access is mine.

I don’t have to rely on my siblings. I don’t have to work a job I don’t want to work. I can start my own company. I can buy my own house. Hell, I can take a fucking vacation and sleep in the spa if I want to.

I can do whatever I want.

I can be whomever I choose.

So how come the only thought in my head is that I wish I could call Cash with this news?

“Call Paul as soon as you leave here,” he says. “He’ll tell you how to access everything.”

I shiver. “Are you serious right now?”

“I’ve done a lot of shitty things in my life with the help of a lot of other really, really bad people who aren’t taking the fall the way I did, but I’ll go to my deathbed shouting that I did it all in the name of my family…for the legacy.”

I want to ask more questions.

What other people? What did they do, and what did they get away with?

Why did he have Archer sign that paper?

Why did he steal half of Mom’s inheritance?

Why did he force Madden into taking over the original Bradley Group?

Why did he hurt all of us over and over if he was doing it all for our family?

His mouth is still moving, but I hear a click and the line goes dead. I can’t hear him, and a guard appears behind him to haul him back.

He sets his hand on the glass, and I set my hand there, too. We didn’t get enough time…but this visit told me one important thing.

Even though he did some really nasty, evil things, he and Mom still found a way to take care of me in the end.

CHAPTER 43: Cash Maddox

You Know What You Need to Do

I am sore as fuck after beating the hell out of the puck today and then working out much harder than I had any business doing, but I can't seem to relax.

I feel restless as every single inch of this house reminds me of everything I've lost through my own stupidity, my own mistakes, my own regrets.

I still haven't cleared things up with West.

But tomorrow's a new day, and I'm certainly not in the mood to deal with any of it now.

Including the call from my publicist lighting up my phone as I ignore everyone and everything, not for the first time in my life.

She texts me a moment later.

Ginny: Cash, pick up. We need to talk about what's hitting the news cycle right now.

Fuck.

No, we don't, because I know what it is, and it's one more thing I don't want to deal with.