Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 473(@300wpm)
“Is that a threat?” he asked Ronald, his grin starting to form. “They’re my shares. Granddad could have given them to literally anyone else. The estate could have sold them into the open market. It could have gone to you, but that wasn’t what he wanted—he specifically handed over a quarter of the company to me. Did he just want you to know that, in the end, you couldn’t have it all? Was that it?”
“He didn’t have a choice,” Ronald returned hotly. The unabridged rage in Ronald’s eyes trickled down to the tic in his clenched jaw. “I think we’ve talked more than enough tod—”
“I’ve actually given this some consideration, believe it or not,” Lucas interjected before his father could spit out some nonsense that he didn’t care to hear. Hadn’t he already listened to enough of it? “I could put my shares on the market—or sell it to investors. That’ll open the company, put a board in front of you that you’ll have to, at the very least, entertain.”
Maybe not answer to.
That didn’t matter.
“Or I can sell it to a private partner,” Lucas said, shrugging. “Make myself a nice little nest egg to stash away in investments that’ll take care of me. Maybe that was it—Granddad was trying to take care of me because you sure as hell wouldn’t.”
“You will sell it to me,” his father replied, enunciating every word as if Lucas needed that to understand.
“No, Dad, I won’t. Even if I sell every single percent for a penny each, it won’t be to you.”
Ronald stood behind the desk—as tall and looming as Lucas, but the sight didn’t have the same effect on him that it used to. As kid, he’d find a quick place to hide, and as a grown man, it’d been a learned habit to keep his father pleased and peaceful to avoid confrontation.
Those things didn’t mean much to Lucas anymore.
“Then, I will see you in court,” Ronald said, his nostrils flaring with every hard breath. “And you can get the hell off my property immediately, or I will contact the police to remove you since you are no longer a Dalton Brewery employee.”
Lucas intended to leave.
After he did one more thing.
Patting his parka pockets, he found what he’d placed in the breast before leaving his apartment that morning. He placed the two photographs, old with worn edges and fuzzy pixelation that spoke of the years the instant, throw-away Kodak cameras had been able to catch of their family in the 80s.
Of a familiar Chevy truck.
A woman sitting on the tailgate in one, grinning at the camera with a glass of wine in hand. Lucas used a finger to slide the photo over to show the one underneath, and the baby that woman then held, although the truck in the background had disappeared.
Interestingly enough, on the back of both photographs, Mitchel Dalton’s handwriting waited to tell a story in only a few words.
On the photo of Lucas’ mother sitting on the tailgate of that infamous truck his grandfather had adored so much because of a woman with whom he had slept with, Mitchel had written simply: Legs and guts, Peobe—the best parts of a woman. He’d scrawled his initials next to the date on the back of the picture, too.
On the back of the other photograph of Penelope holding her newborn son, the youngest child, his grandfather had simply noted the birth of Jacob Dalton.
Almost nine months to the day after the date on that first picture.
“Take me to court,” Lucas said, making sure he was the one to enunciate every word for his father to hear while he flipped over each photograph for Ronald. He made sure his father could see that he also knew how deep their family’s secrets really went into their roots, and exactly what that could mean should Ronald make good on his threat of legal action to force Lucas’ hand on the sale of the company shares. “Let’s see what else we can find hiding in our family tree, Dad.”
Ronald, who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—speak through his gnashing teeth, glared at Lucas. This wasn’t like sinking down to Ronald’s level of petty and bitterness at all. The truth about just how rotten their family tree really was probably went all the way down to the goddamn roots.
It started somewhere, right?
“Those came from Mom, by the way,” he told his father. “I guess I can’t say she never did anything for me or Jacob in the end after all, huh?”
“To what?” Ronald practically roared back.
If the employees upstairs hadn’t heard anything from the office before, they sure as hell did with that.
“To what?” his father repeated, snapping every word out like a dog biting at the end of its leash. “To humiliate me, like what they did wasn’t already enough—like my father didn’t hang that seventy-five percent over my head for fucking years to keep it a secret? What would she share it with you for?”