Chapter 2 #3
“No, you didn’t used to be a bad person.
I know that. However, you do have an addiction,” he declared.
“A serious addiction that you won’t get help for.
It’s already cost you your property, your home, Grandpa’s business, and God-only-knows what else.
I could throw you out on the street right now, and you wouldn’t have two cents to put together. ”
Silence filled the room.
“The question is, … who is waiting for me to do just that?”
She blinked at him and frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Yeah. You say that,” he replied, “but what were you trying to do at the bank today?”
She shrugged. “I just need a little bit of petty cash.”
“Yeah, sure you do.” He scoffed.
She stood up, clearly irate, and announced, “I don’t have to take that behavior from you. This is my house.”
“No, it’s not,” he said, raising his voice.
“This is my house, and I am not tolerating any of the crap that you’ve been pulling.
So, if you think you’re getting more money out of this place, you’re wrong.
And, if you think you’ll be spinning more lies to cover your tracks or …
if you had something to do with Grandpa going missing—”
“I would never hurt him,” she wailed, staring at Ashton. “I don’t know why you’re being so mean to me.”
“Because you’re past seeing what is normal and what is right here,” he snapped.
“Honestly I think you’ve been past that point for a very long time, but Grandpa didn’t want to make you mad.
He didn’t want to upset the apple cart. So, he was apparently okay letting you ruin everything that everybody else built, just so you could keep up your gambling habit. ”
He took a moment, staring at her. “The question is, did your gambling have anything to do with Grandpa’s disappearance?”
She stared at him, and he watched as the color slowly faded from her skin, as she finally took in what he said. “They wouldn’t do that,” she replied frantically.
“What do you mean, they wouldn’t? Have you already been warned by your bookies?” he asked her.
She stared at him, looked away, and then back.
He could almost see the wheels spinning.
“I’ve never been in that kind of trouble,” she stated. “You know that.”
“No, I don’t know that,” he argued. “As I’m looking at you now, I’m not sure I know anything about you anymore.
The woman who used to love her husband would never have done anything to put her family under this kind of stress or would force her husband to sell off parts of the land to repay her debts. ”
She stared at him. “Isn’t that how you got the place?” she asked in a nasty tone. “You waited until he was vulnerable, then took advantage of him.”
He stared at her and smiled. “We know that’s what you intended to do.”
She flushed at that. “I did not. It’s my money as much as his.”
“Not your money. Not his money either. You stole the family funds dry, then decided to steal from Grandpa’s investment clients.
That stolen money is what you’re giving to loan sharks,” he clarified for her, as if she didn’t already know.
“Then you’re losing it at the gambling tables.
So it’s never been your money. Let’s not forget that part. ”
She sniffed and pouted. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“Unfortunately I know way more than I should. And, when I think about it, I realize I should have just pressed charges when I was here six years ago.”
She looked at him, steeling her gaze. “What do you mean?” Her voice shook.
“You think I don’t know?” he asked, his tone bitter. “Do you really think I didn’t have a clue what you were doing? Do you think I didn’t know how long you’ve been stealing money from Grandpa’s business, his clients’ investment accounts, to pay your gambling debts?”
She paled ever-so-slightly, then sniffed and said, “So what? It’s not like they care. It’s not money that they need. It’s not money you need either.”
“It’s not your money at all,” he repeated.
“Well, I’ve been very good. I’ve won back lots of it,” she declared. “So, … obviously I can continue to keep winning it back.”
“Until you hit that next bad streak and the next,” he reminded her, “and then you found out that getting more money wasn’t so easy anymore, like today at the bank.”
“I’ve been putting the money back,” she snapped. “So I should be allowed to get some more to, you know, clear the debts again.” She sniffed. “I mean, that’s how it is. Some days you win, and some days you lose.”
He nodded. “And some days you just don’t get access to the money.
” He gave her a knowing smile. “And, by the way, your contractual agreement was to deposit money to cover your theft. That contract doesn’t allow you to then withdraw the same money you just put in.
Those deposits you make into Grandpa’s special business account, I then move them to pay back the people you stole from. ”
She stared at him, and then her face flushed. “And you also removed my access to those accounts?”
“You’re damn right I did. Grandpa promised me that he would take care of it, … if I didn’t press charges.”
She snorted. “Well, he did take care of it. I got into it again because he’s just … unavailable.”
He stared at her. “Right.”
“Yeah, and, if it will cool you off, at this point in time, most of the accounts have been paid back.”
“You paid them?”
Her eyes widened at that, and she nodded enthusiastically. “Of course—”
“No, you did not. The accounts are paid but not because of you. I paid them back. I had to buy out and sell an awful lot of stock in order to get that done, and there was a price to pay for that too.”
She frowned and asked, “What was that price?”
“His portion of this place is now mine too,” he declared. “And Grandpa was fine with that arrangement.”
A shock wave took over her expression.
“So, now the question is, who decided that Grandpa was doing something they didn’t like and decided to do something to him?”
She stared at him in shock. “You can’t honestly think that somebody would have hurt him?”
He snorted. “We already know that you would because, as far as you’re concerned, this place is just a cash cow for you to bleed dry. And it doesn’t matter who suffers for it.”
She shook her head at that. “You should talk. You got a big chunk of your great-grandparents’ money, and that was never supposed to be yours.”
“I’m not even talking to you about that,” he replied, with a smile. “That is my personal business and definitely never included you.”
“Well, it should have,” she declared, with a huff. “I mean, I was their daughter-in-law. I should have been given something. And you know very well how upset your grandfather was when he didn’t even get any of that.”
“He knew perfectly well why he didn’t get any cash,” he stated, looking at her, “and so do you. Do you think your in-laws didn’t know what you were up to with your growing debts?
They already knew about your gambling habits and stealing family business money long before they were gone.
They changed their wills accordingly. And they couldn’t trust their own son to do the right thing either, as Grandpa has been covering for you for decades.
That is why Grandpa got no cash, just part of the land.
And they told him well beforehand, so he could make plans accordingly. ”
“Well, they didn’t know you. They didn’t know anything.”
“Actually they knew a lot about me when I was younger,” he stated, with a smile. “We spent quite a bit of time together. Like it or not, you remember that very well.”
She sniffed at that and declared, “They were old.”
“Yeah, well, guess what? Now you’re old.”
She stared at him in horror. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
He laughed with a shrug. “If you tried living in the truth instead of whatever fantasy world view you weave for yourself, you would probably do a lot better—inside your body and outside.”
She blinked and then sagged back down onto the kitchen chair. “I need money,” she stated, resignation in her tone.
“Well, that’s too bad,” he replied, “because you’re not getting any. Not from any of the sources you’ve been tapping into up until now.”
She stared at him, long and hard. “You don’t understand, Ash. … I need the money.” Hearing that old nickname from the past was a new low and meant she was truly desperate and pulling out all the stops.
“You’ll have to explain exactly why you need the money and what’s going on before you get the time of day from me. No more lies. You’ve gone way too far for way too long, Grandma.”
She looked at him, her shoulders sagging. “They’re holding Alexander hostage.”