Page 78 of The Arrangement

I wasn't sure about the face that I was making, but it made my grandmother smile and squeeze my hand. "You are practical and smart, Georgia. And those are good things. But sometimes, you have to make a choice, to take a chance. We only have one life, and if I hadn't taken a chance on your grandfather, I wouldn't have you. Every choice in my life has brought me to where I am, and I wouldn't change it for the world."

I didn't even realizewhat I was doing when I got home, dropping my bag on the floor with abandon and pausing only to fill up Hannah's food and water and scratch her soft head as I passed her. My laptop lay underneath a pile of old mail, which I let scatter to the floor as I collapsed on the couch.

The blank document lay before me, the blinking of the text bar goading me on once again, taunting me to finish the line. The chapter. The goddamn book.

It seized me, all of the emotions that had been piling up, and I allowed them to breathe, to spill over and through me as I typed. I didn't stop; I couldn't, not when my heart was breaking and beating and healing all at once as I allowed myself to feel.

It was horrible; it was therapeutic. It was the depth of my soul crying out as I poured everything thought, every muffled sob and tear into another fictional person. Passing my trauma and my pain onto aperson of my own design, with different hair, a different name in a different world. But she was me, and all of the passion and fire that I had been missing in my novel suddenly wasn't something I was having to manufacture.

For so long, I hadn't allowed myself to feel; I had buried it so deeply because if I didn't let it breathe, then it didn't exist.

But now, with my permission, it was free.

So I wrote and wrote. I didn't sleep; I grabbed a granola bar when my hands began to tremble over the keyboard. But I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

Chapter 35

Sebastian

Ihesitated as I lifted my hand to knock on the office door of The Quinn Foundation. My grandfather knew I was coming; I’d even made an appointment because, without it, grandchild or not, his secretary wouldn't have let me through the door. After a moment's reflection, I didn't knock but pushed open the door to see my grandfather hunched over his desk in a smart suit that probably cost an average worker three months' salary.

"Learn to knock, Sebastian," he grumbled but waved me in nevertheless. "I assume you looked over the Erkharst file?"

I sat in the pulse leather chairs that faced his dark oak desk, leaning back as I surveyed the man before me.

"I did." I paused as I opened up the leather portfolio I had been given the night before last. "I did have some questions before we move forward."

He just grunted in response, leaning forward on the desk. That was the only allowance I would be given to proceed. So I took it.

"I did some digging," I said, taking out a piece of paper on which I had annotated and circled a few lines of text. "Erkarst Earnings has a pretty diverse board, which is always good for a non-profit." The icy stare of an impatient man was all the response I received from the olderman. "What caught my eye was this 'Chase and Harper Trust.'" I looked past him to the painted mural that sat behind his desk of two yellow labs, one with a duck in its mouth. "I remember the stories of your hunting dogs you had when you first started your first company. Chase and Harper, right?"

My grandfather narrowed his eyes at me, the small vein in his forehead bulging just enough to know that I had struck a chord, so I continued.

"Are you a silent partner? Or an investor?" I cleared my throat, pushing my paper across the span of massive dark wood between us. "So that I know what I'm working with."

He didn't touch the document, just steepled his fingers as he regarded me with cold eyes. "You know, you might have more brains between those ears than I gave you credit for. But yes, something you'll learn in business is diversification. Never putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak."

I tried to hide the smug smile from my face. "Yeah, that's one way to put it. It could also be construed as tax evasion or money laundering. Coercion, at the least.”

That had the old man stilling preternaturally, his jaw working as he surveyed me. "Those are words tossed around by men who don't understand the business world."

I hummed, pulling out several more sheets of paper. "But it wouldn't explain why three other buildings have been bought and sold by you and these shell corporations, then pushing out the renters by hiking up the rates to nearly double their original contract. Then when those tenants were gone, it was re-developed by the non-profit, to then be bought back under Chase and Harper. Which, if I'm looking everything right, and I am, is another for-profit company you own."

He was silent, but the rage emanating from him was palpable. "You're moving a lot of money around, actually. Have been for several years now." At this point, I pulled out four years of the company's back taxes. "But, being as the money is being moved around to these 'investors,' they aren't showing up on the company's tax filings. In fact, it even looks like we were in a deficit when a few of these multi-million dollar sales happened. But of course, they aren't on Quinn Real Estate or even Chase and Harper. It would be on the 501(c)(3), right? Erkarst is the non-profit. They would be filed as a loss. A write-off, right?"

I didn't wait for him to respond as I lifted out the very last of the paperwork to set before him, his anger a growing writhing thing as his face grew redder at every passing moment.

"You're pushing long-standing businesses out because they can't pay your inflated rates. Because you want to develop the area to be more lucrative for you." It was now my turn to grow angry. "When that happens, the market soars, and people are suddenly unable to afford the property tax on the homes they've lived in for generations so that you can pad your bottom line."

He stood at that, slapping the table, but I didn't so much as flinch. "Those places are barely habitable! Those businesses would have been floundering had I not stepped in, had I not invested in parks and municipalities."

I stayed seated, the epitome of calm and collected despite the blood boiling just beneath the surface. Shrugging I closed the portfolio, balancing it on my knees. "Yeah, you're quite the philanthropist." Then I looked at the various photos that sat perched on the bookshelves behind the desk, pointing to a picture of him and an equally grey-haired man with hands clasped. "Isn't that Senator Grayson? The guy lobbying the state to put a restaurant in the protected woodlands area in Ridgeway Park? That must be a handy ally to have.”

Silence. But not quite. Threatening, wrathful silence. "It's something that could get someone in a lot of trouble, don't you think?"

"Are you threatening me, you little shit?"

I stood at my full height, towering over the 5'11 man who always seemed taller when I was younger. Now, it seemed to slip from my eyes as I saw what he really was. He was a bully, a man so full of greed he gorged himself on it while people starved underneath him. He was propped up by the false image of a doting father and grandfather while he tore down homes and erected parking lots in their place. The portfolio fell to the ground, spilling the contents at my feet as I stoodto face the man who had ruled my life for as long as I could remember.

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