Page 9 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

His gaze hardens. “It doesn’t have to be that way, though.”

I raise a brow at him this time. “Why not?”

He twists his lips and wraps his knuckles on the table, his entire demeanor shifting. “I know what he did to you, Silas.” His tone drops. “I know what he did to a lot of people, and I don’t want your uncle controlling a company your family spent two hundred years building. He’ll have control of every dime. He will hold all the power and use it to do even worse than he already has without your father at leasttryingto keep him in check. The man should be in fucking prison, not making decisions that affect hundreds of workers’ lives and well-being.”

I snort and point an accusatory finger at him. “Yeah, and who helped keep him out of prison?”

Ronald takes another sip as he watches me, and while I can see the apology in his stare, it doesn’t do any good now. “I didn’t have a choice, Silas.”

“Bullshit.” Anger flares red-hot in my blood, scorching through me and threatening to ignite me from the inside out. I shove off the counter, advancing a step, Whiskey right along with me, baring his teeth at the focus of my ire. “Youalwayshave a choice. You just didn’t make the right one because the wrong one was easier and got you more money and power.”

He flinches but vigorously shakes his head. “It isn’t like that, Silas. Your uncle…” He swallows slowly, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he weighs his next words. “Hehadsomething on me, something that would’ve ended my career and my marriage.”

Shit.

Not that it changes anything or wipes away Ronald’s sins, but it does explain a lot of what he was willing to do for a man who is such a monster. “He was blackmailing you?”

He nods slowly.

“What about my father?”

A long, slow sigh slips from his lips, and he toys with the mug in front of him, not looking at me. “Your dad protected Martin. He tried to rein him in for a while but realized it was a vain effort and eventually went along with anything Martin wanted. Your dad may have been the older brother, if only by ten months, but Martin controlled him through manipulation of their relationship. I guess it’s true what they say about Irish twins. They’re as close as regular ones, even if they don’t share the womb.”

I always knew Father allowed Uncle Marty to get away with heinous acts, but I never thought he might have tried to stop him. Because I never saw that. He never stood up for me or defended me against that madman; he only turned a blind eye and his back when I needed help.

“So, Father knew you were being blackmailed, and he knew everything Uncle Marty was doing, and he let it continue?”

Ronald nods, focus still ahead of him on the mug. “I’m sorry. Truly. The older I get, the more the guilt weighs on me.”

“Is that why you came here? To try to unburden some of your guilt?” I release a sardonic laugh that holds zero humor. “Because that’s not going to happen. If you’re asking for my forgiveness, you can’t have it.”

What they let happen is unforgivable. It isn’t something that can be forgotten, no matter how far away I ran or how deeply down I tried to bury those memories. The evidence of them still scars my body. I see and feel the reality of them every single day.

Just having this man in my home, what was my safe haven away from the past, already threatens to unleash the demons again. They dance around at the back of my mind, trying to break free, to wash me in a tidal wave of misery I can never escape.

“I’m not here for forgiveness, Silas. I would never expect you to forgive me for what I’ve done—or him or your father—but I do expect you to step up and help me save the company from him.”

“I don’t want the company.” I spread out my hands. “This life is all I want. To be left alone. That’s why I renounced my inheritance and left.”

“Verballyrenounced your inheritance.”

I nod. “Yeah. What are you getting at?”

He offers a slight shrug and finally looks up at me. “Your father never changed any of the paperwork. He never removed you from his will or adjusted the trust after you left.”

The thought that Father hadn’t immediately run to Ronald after our blow-out fight and had him instantly remove me had never crossed my mind. It should have been the first thing he did.

“Uncle Marty didn’t make him?”

Ronald shrugs again. “He had me tell Martin he had removed you.”

He lied to Uncle Marty?

All the years of torture he put me through at the hands of his brother, all the times he defended him and stood up for the man who was hurting his son, I never thought he would openly defy him or do something that could literally cost him billions.

“So, what does that mean?”

Ronald locks gazes with me. “It means you just became a billionaire, fifty times over, and that’s only the cash your father had in his bank accounts controlled by the will and investments he had you listed as the beneficiary on. If you take into account the funds and the business controlled by the trust…” He shrugs again. “Far more than that.”

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