Page 139 of Eastern Lights

“What is this?”

“Walter Rollsfield’s grave dig. I know you didn’t tell me to go digging on him, but after the shit I found out about his wife, I knew I had to. I’m pissed I didn’t do it sooner. We could’ve avoided all of this shit.”

I opened the files, and the wave of nauseous that hit me made me almost pass out. Damian had gathered old emails from Walter to other clients of his. Contracts. New properties that he’d bought under another business name.

My properties.

Walter Rollsfield bought every property that I’d brought to him for my passion project, and he was secretly planning to turn them all into luxury condominiums. Every. Single. One.

“Turns out the asshole was the one getting in the way of all of your hard work. Every single location he swept up to make profit for himself. Dude…he sold you out. I wouldn’t be shocked if the Queens property fell through sooner or later, too.”

Why would he do that to me? From the jump, I looked toward Walter as a father figure. He’d taught me the ins and outs of business. He invested in me, in my dreams. Why would he go through all of that just to steal from me? To lie and cheat. To take something that I loved, something I truly believed in, and take it for himself.

Hell, he’d stood beside me flabbergasted and angered by the fact that the deals kept falling through! Was that all an act? Was I some kind of pawn in some twisted game of chess he’d been playing?

I trusted him.

I trusted him more than I’d trusted anyone else in the business. The whole time, I sat stunned by how he could raise such a monster son, when in reality, Jason had been mirroring his own father.

Right after I read through everything, I headed over to Walter’s office. His secretary was quick to tell me he was in the middle of a meeting, but I didn’t give a shit. I barged right into his conference room, not giving a damn what I was interrupting.

The moment I flung the door open, a room of about ten gentlemen turned to look my way. At the head of the table sat Walter. He narrowed his eyes at me, baffled.

“Connor, what are you doing here?”

“Is it true?” I barked, my chest rising and falling hard as I stared into a set of eyes that I’d trusted for so many years.

Walter laughed nervously, shaking his head. “I’m in the middle of a meeting. Maybe later will be a better time to talk, son—”

“Don’t call me son,” I hissed. “Is it true you bought all of the apartment buildings that supposedly fell through for me?”

Walter’s face grew grimace, and he cleared his throat. He looked to the gentlemen sitting around him and pushed out a fake grin. “I’m sorry, everyone. If you will excuse me for a moment, I need to handle this conversation in my office,” he said as he stood up and marched past me. “I will be back in no time.”

He headed for his office, and I followed behind him, staying right on his heels. The moment we were inside, he slammed his door shut and turned to me, fuming. “Are you insane, boy? Do you know how important that meeting is to me?”

“Do you know how important those buildings were to me?!” I echoed as rage shot throughout my entire system. The more I stared at the asshole, the more irritated I grew.

He walked over to his bar and released the longest sigh as he began pouring himself a glass of whiskey. “Truly, Connor, I cannot believe you are coming to me with this bullshit. After everything I’ve done for you.”

“I’ve done plenty for you, too, Walter,” I said. “Taking on Jason, for instance.”

“If you think you’ve done anything for me, you must be kidding yourself. I made you, little boy. Without me and my investments early on, Roe Real Estate wouldn’t exist. A warning—don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” He walked around to his desk, pulled out his chair, and sat. He was acting calm as a clam, as if he hadn’t ruined my dreams.

“You screwed me over and pretended that it was someone else.”

“Between you and me, I’m shocked it took you this long to realize what had been going on. All the clues were there. But you know what they say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.”

“Why would you do this?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Because I love money. Don’t get me wrong, the properties you discovered are outstanding. They are going to make great homes for very wealthy people down the line. Which, in turn would make me very wealthy. It’s a win-win.” He sipped at his whiskey, and then paused. “Well, I guess it’s a lose-lose for you. But hell, I’m happy.”

“You son of a bitch,” I sneered, wanting nothing more than to slam my fist into his face. His smugness was driving me insane. “You lied to me about everything.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to the real world. People fucking lie to get what they want. You really thought I made it this far in life by honesty? Truthfully, you’ve helped me a lot. I’ll send you a thank you check after my profits start rolling in.”

“I want nothing to do with you. I want nothing else from you. I’m done with you. Do you hear me, Walter? We are finished.”

“Yeah, well, I wish it was that easy, but you see there’s something called contracts that keep you from walking away. When you signed to work with me, I was given forty percent of Roe Real Estate. So, even if you’re mad, we are still business partners.”

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