Page 23 of Always Salty

He was just the kind of shark that that place needed to thrive.

However, if there was one thing that I would not do, it was let that man win.

Alexander Pettigrew was just as bad as my father.

Though he hadn’t hurt me like my father had, he’d watched plenty of times. He’d turned a blind eye. He’d sat down and watched while my father had tortured me endlessly and laughed when I’d done something to protect myself and my dad had retaliated.

He’d even offered suggestions.

I’d been too fucking scared that he’d retaliate and take it out on Copper if I told the world that he was a willing participant in my childhood abuse.

As it was, he’d fought tooth and nail to make Copper pay. Then he’d fought to ensure that we got nothing after my father’s death.

Luckily, our grandfather had fought just as hard and won on our behalf, and everything had become ours that was owed to us.

My brothers got the lakefront property.

I, on the other hand, got the company that I hated, the dividends that I refused to touch, and a headache once a month because I was forced to sit in on a meeting that could’ve been an email.

The only good thing I got out of those meetings was opposing those that I hated on that board, and becoming a sometimes deciding vote to make things go the way that I wanted them.

Alexander Pettigrew had thought he’d be able to fight forever, but lady luck had finally caught up to him and taken him out of the game.

A woman had come out against him, not caring about all the money and clout he had and accused him of rape.

Things had gone to court, and Alexander Pettigrew had gone to prison because the evidence had been overwhelming.

He’d been sentenced to seven years in prison—which was a fucking joke because Copper had gotten three times that for a crime that wasn’t nearly as vile.

Luckily, at first, it hadn’t been the same prison as Copper.

But after a few years of him being in, he’d been transferred, and he’d wound up at the same prison as Copper six months ago.

That’d been why I hadn’t been visiting Copper as much.

We’d all decided that until Copper noticed, we weren’t going to tell him that Pettigrew was in there with him.

Meanwhile, Pettigrew disgusted me so much that I wasn’t willing to chance even seeing him.

He made my skin crawl, and the thought of seeing his beady little eyes again made me want to vomit.

“I know that Alexander Pettigrew being at Copper’s prison makes it uncomfortable for you to go…” Speaking of the devil. “But I have a package for you to pick up at the prison. Plus, in exchange for that package, I need you to drop off the bike I have on the trailer outside my house. You don’t have to go inside at all.”

I frowned, unease skirting through my veins. “What kind of package?”

“The kind that I can’t tell you about,” he said. “My contact will meet you there and come up to you. You’ll know who it is.”

Cutter and his cloak and dagger shit.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll call the board and tell them that we’ll need to reschedule the meeting to this afternoon. Will I be back by four?”

“That should do it,” Cutter said. “Call me when you get the package.”

“Hey, baby.”

I shivered as I waited in the parking lot for whatever it was that I needed to pick up.

Normally, I would’ve never been asked to do this particular pick up, but none of my brothers were able to do it.

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