Page 82 of Scrooge

“What kind of trouble?”

“Alessandro Romano,” John says, and my blood runs cold.

“The mob?” I think about Sebastian Romano. Alessandro was his father who died a few years ago. Rumor has it, at Sebastians hands.

“Yeah. Owed them a lot of money,” John says, and Wendy looks at me sadly. “He needed help to get out of it. He couldn’t go to anyone in his circles because he would have lost his entire business. He needed help from someone with no connections or ties to the business world or the mob.”

“What?” I’m in a state of disbelief as my head shakes. My father was a great businessman. A multimillionaire.

“He got into debt with them. To be honest, I didn’t want details. The less I knew, the better,” he says.

“Alessandro was a bad man. Very underhanded.” Wendy nods, and I am still struggling to understand exactly what is happening here.

“So what exactly happened?” I ask, slowly taking a seat as my legs feel shaky.

“He came to the shop. We owned the building at that time,” John says before Wendy jumps in.

“It was something we purchased as soon as we got married, with help from family and a small bank loan. We were excited to start our new life together.”

“The toy store took off, location was good, business was great, and because we owned the building, our expenses were low.”

I frown at that, now even more confused. I didn’t know that they owned the building once.

“But your father needed money and didn’t have anyone else to go to,” Wendy says.

“He owed them a lot, and while he had some money to give them, he didn’t have all of it,” John says. “So we sold him our building. He was able to borrow against it and get the remaining money he needed from a bank loan.”

And now, I’m gobsmacked.

“I don’t follow. He was a millionaire. He had money,” I say, my words stumbling over each other. Now I’m starting to understand a little more what Sebastian Romano may have been referring to at the Maddison Miller Gallery all those weeks ago.

“He did, but it was all tied up, nothing that was liquid. He knew our building was worth a lot, and through buying it for a dollar, he had full equity,” John says.

“A dollar?” I question, in total disbelief.

“Under the agreement that the rent would remain low for the remainder of the toy store life. We did some calculations and figured out that the amount we would save through paying low rent for twenty years would equal the value of the building back then,” he says, and I feel sick to my stomach. Sure, it may have equaled the value back then, but now? There’s no chance.

“Your rental agreement is for ten dollars per square foot of floor space. Tucker Toys is about twenty thousand square feet. So over twenty years, you paid about four million. If you kept the store and sold it today, you would make at least eight. Maybe even more,” I say, doing the rough calculations in my head. Her father looks down, and her mother looks crestfallen.

“My father took advantage of your kindness,” I grit out, because my whole world feels like it is crumbling. The man I looked up to, the man I idolized, got himself in trouble with the mob and took advantage of some kindhearted people whom he was well aware didn’t have the business knowledge to know any better.

“He didn’t. We knew what we were doing.” Sitting back, John takes all the responsibility. I can see where Haylee gets it from. I think about her now. Back to when we first met.

“Haylee said my office desk is like yours?” I say.

“That’s true. Your father bought us matching desks as a thank you,” John says, and I huff my disgust. How could he do this? I’m heartbroken, more so than I could have predicted. If I understand things correctly, if Haylee’s dad didn’t take the fall for my father, then my whole business would be nonexistent. I wouldn’t even be standing here today. My life would probably be similar to that of what Deloris experiences.

“You sacrificed your life and financial well-being to help my father?” I say, feeling in awe of him now.

“To help someone who had nowhere else to go,” he says, still firm in his decision.

“Did my father offeranything?”

“He offered to put the girls through college, but I said no. I didn't want anything else from him. Your father used his desk as a motivator to have more. I use the desk as a motivator to always do what's right, regardless of the cost.”

I sit back, shocked, my stomach lurching like I have been punched and my chest aching. It’s then I realize that I was turning into my father. With my Scrooge ways, my life before Haylee was bleak. Self-loathing creeps up my spine and starts drowning any other thoughts.

“When you started the agreement with Haylee, you were only thinking of you. What you could get out of it and so was Haylee,” John says, like he can read my mind. Clearly, he is a smart man. I wonder how long he has known about Haylee and me and how we first got together.

---