Page 123 of Severed Rivalry
“But why?” Sariah asks.
My sister shrugs, and I just stare, piecing together a puzzle whose image I don’t want to see. “Because he loves himself above all else. And because he could. It’s one hundred percent pride, with the smug satisfaction that he’d get away with it.”
I grab a pen and begin scrawling notes on the folder closest to me.
“I’ve cut him out. Liam’s cut him out. You’re the only holdout, Ci.”
“I’m not holding anything out. I’m done. I thought it went without saying.”
“Then what do we do with this?” Ayla asks.
At the same time Sariah asks, “Does this implicate you? What does it mean for you and your new business?”
To my sister I say, “I don’t know. Yet.” To Sariah, I add, “My new business is free and clear. I need to get with my attorney and discuss what Ayla found.” I wave the back of my hand at the paperwork demonstrating the bullshit before us. “But since Dad put himself on administrative leave and I have control, even if it’s temporary, I plan to take my personal revenue and move it elsewhere. I’ll pay the bills for M.E. and payroll from Dad’s personal stash, leave the drug money for the feds or whomever to claim, and then use what’s left that should’ve been mine to fund Phoenix.”
“Phoenix?” they ask in unison.
“My new venture. I’ll dissolve M.E. Dad will be lucky if the feds don’t bring a case with all of this.” I gesture again to the paperwork unnecessarily.
“They don’t know,” Ayla adds quietly. “I have his confession, but I was keeping it as leverage.”
“That’s a problem then, because I’m going to marry Sariah.”
Ayla’s gasp fills the room echoed by Sariah’s smaller one.
“And I’m claiming Renée as my own. I won’t have him anywhere near my family.”
“Oh, Ci.” My sister rushes me, rocking me where I stand withthe force of her hug. “I love this for you.” From my side, she peers to the woman I love. “Finally, it’s been too long coming. I love this for both of you and I’m so glad you’re in the family, Sariah. Does this mean the ban is lifted on me and Renée taking Denver?” She throws her hands up in victory, not bothering to wait and answers her own question. “Yes!”
I hold Sariah’s gaze. When I wink, she dissolves and her smile lights up the room.
Looking back down at the paperwork, I shake my head. The fucker set me up. He set me up in that warehouse, but he set me up before that legally and financially.
“Thank you for this.” My voice is quiet and sincere when I speak to my sister. “Without you, I’d have fallen into his trap.”
“You’re the only person on the planet I’d do accounting for. Well, maybe Liam. But don’t tell him that. I never want to do an audit like this again.”
“I won’t.”
“Tuesday. I’m heading up to Beaver Brook. You owe me a hike on Tuesday. You, too, Sariah. Plan on it.”
I’m sure my face shows the gravity of what she’s insinuating.
“This Tuesday is Renée’s birthday, so come over for dinner?” Sariah counters. “I’ll do breakfast with her—it’s a tradition.” She looks at me, “But go. You owe her.”
This is the thing about joining a family already in progress, there are times, inside jokes, and customs that I’ll have to learn as I go. “Are you sure?” I mean about breakfast, not about going.
“I’m sure.”
I agree to a hike with entirely too many people and then wonder what to get a fourteen-year-old girl for her birthday.
A fourteen-year-old girl whom I’d go to the ends of the earth for.
A fourteen-year-old girl with a scythe firmly above her neck in the form of a madman who wants to make sure her life is never whole.
35
alligator speak
