Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Maddox
“You okay, man?” Tyler asks as we watch Wyatt and Grant wrangle the herd. “You seem out of it today.”
“Just got a lot on my mind,” I reply, bracing my hands on the fence.
“Saw Della is home. That must be a relief.”
I nod. It was for about ten seconds. Instead of calling me, her only brother, to pick her up from the hospital after they discharged her, she took a cab, claiming she didn’t want to bother me. The shit thing is, I believed her, and the relief I felt quickly morphed into remorse.
Amelia’s words rang in the back of my head, and I haven’t been able to shake them since. She made a valid point last night. Shutting Della out, making decisions without consulting her—it’s exactly what I did to Amelia, and that backfired in my face.
I need to talk to Della.
No yelling.
No pointing fingers.
Just the two of us speaking calmly and with respect for one another. I think she’ll agree to the deal when I lay everything out in the open, and I won’t have to go over her head, or make it seem as if I’m deciding for her.
I turn to Tyler. “I’ve got to go back to the house and do payroll. You can handle this, right?”
“That’s why you pay me the big bucks.”
I shake my head. “I don’t pay you nearly enough.”
But hopefully that will change soon.
I leave him in charge of managing the herd and make my way back to the main house. There is no sign of Della anywhere.
I thought I was the only Meadows skilled in avoidance, but it appears my sister is a master too.
Scrubbing a hand over my face, I start for my office. I wasn’t lying when I told Tyler I had to do payroll. To my surprise, I find the door slightly ajar. I toe it open with the tip of my boot, and my eyes go wide when I spot my sister sitting behind my desk, papers strewn on top of it.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” I roar, stalking toward her.
She jerks, her head snapping up. Fear flits across her features but it quickly fades. “I’m going through the books.” She rises from the chair. “We seriously need to talk about them.”
“The books aren’t your concern, Della,” I snap, planting my hands on my hips as I shoot her a glare. Where the fuck does she get off going through my shit?
“This is my ranch as well, Maddox.” Her voice trembles, but there is a sense of conviction in her tone.
This isn’t how I wanted to do this, but I can’t control myself.
“Not for long,” I sneer. “I’m buying you out.”
She blanches, her face turning white. “What? How? There’s no way you can buy me out. You’re tapped out. You have no capital. Hell, I don’t even know how you’re paying the staff.”
Those words only fuel my anger. How very on point of her to throw my failures in my face. Well, the joke is on her.
I cross my arms against my chest, a smug expression working its way across my face.
“I have an investor. They are going to buy your share.”
“You have an investor,” she parrots. “Who?”
“That’s not your concern. They’re good for the money. Won’t jip you a dime.”
“I said, who?” she snaps.
“The Fallen Demons MC.”
She blinks slowly, her lower lip quivering slightly.
I wait for the tears to trickle from the corners of her eyes, but they don’t.
Instead, she plants her hands on the desk and straightens her shoulders.
I guess the corporate world taught her to have a backbone.
If I weren’t so fucking mad, I’d applaud her for her efforts.
“Well, I hate to break it to you and your biker friends, but I’m not selling my half,” she says evenly. “I can help you here. We don’t need to bring in outsiders.”
That last sentence slashes through my pride, and my armor is up before I know it.
“Della, you’re a fucking outsider yourself.
You can’t sweep in here like some fucking hero when you don’t know shit about how this place works.
Riding horses and cleaning stalls when you were a teen doesn’t qualify you as the savior of Meadows Ranch.
I’m buying you out. End of fucking story.
Then you can go back to your happy little life and keep doing whatever the hell it is you did before. ”
She flinches, and the dam breaks. Tears stream down her cheeks.
“What life?” she shrieks. “What job? I have nothing.”
I narrow my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
She wraps her arms around herself just as a sob escapes her. “You know nothing about what I’ve gone through. You don’t know how unhappy I’ve been. How coming home felt like peace to me. A peace I haven’t felt since my senior year of college.”
I haven’t seen Della this distraught since our mother died. Back then, seeing my sister in so much pain gutted me and left me with a dire need to protect her. Now, I’m just conflicted.
“Okay, then tell me. What have you gone through that’s been so bad? Huh?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she rasps, furiously wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I’m not selling, Maddox, don’t think you can convince me.”
“Fuck that, Della. You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and just walk away from me. If you want me to understand you, you need to start fucking talking. I’m not a mind reader.”
She hesitates for a moment, closing her eyes as she composes herself. When they open again, they’re vacant.
Soulless.
“My senior year, I was working on two degrees, burning both ends of the candle. I wasn’t playing around. My roommate saw I was stressed and convinced me to go to a party.”
She pauses for a beat, her eyes flashing with torment. The sight makes my gut twist with dread. I don’t know what she’s about to tell me, but I’m sure I don’t want to hear it.
I listen intently as she recalls going to a party with her roommate. Then my breath ceases when she begins to speak of some fucking guy named Scott. I can sense where she’s going with this, and my hands ball into fists.
“The next thing I knew, Scott was ushering me into a room where James and two other guys were waiting. Cameron was there too,” she sobs, her whole body shaking.
“She taped it.” Her eyes flit to mine, and more tears slide down her cheeks.
“She just sat there, recording while they raped me.” She shakes her head.
“I thought she was my friend. Some judge of character I am.”
My jaw tightens, and my vision blurs as rage surges through me.
“You should have told me.”
I would’ve fucking killed them. I would’ve tortured them all, and when they begged for mercy, I would’ve slit their throats. The roommate’s too.
“I didn’t think you or anyone else would believe me.
” She releases a ragged breath before continuing.
“I ended up finishing school, getting the internship, and blocking out what happened to me. That night destroyed my future. I had plans to come home after graduation. I figured I could apply my degrees to the ranch and help wherever I could, but everything went up in smoke. But I was too ashamed to face anyone here.”
All this time I thought he was off living her dreams, not giving a single fuck about me, or the ranch. But she was living a fucking nightmare.
I close the distance between us, bending at my knees to make us eye level.
“Della, you listen here. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. Not a fucking thing. You were a victim. I just wish you would’ve said something sooner. We could’ve helped you deal with the aftermath.” My nostrils flare as I point a finger at my chest. “I could’ve helped you.”
Instead, she kept it to herself.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she croaks. “I didn’t want to disappoint Granddaddy, and if he knew that I’d put myself in such a situation, that’s exactly what would have happened.”
I don’t agree with that. Granddaddy loved Della more than anything. It would’ve broken his heart to know someone violated his girl. Just like it’s breaking mine.
“It does matter, Della. You matter, and I’m sorry if I made you think otherwise. I’m sorry for my part in making you think you needed to go through that alone, but you’re not alone. And I need you to know you’re safe here.”
She stares at me blankly. “I thought you wanted me gone.”
Yeah, I thought I did too. Now all I want to do is make things right.
Blowing out a breath, I scratch the side of my face.
“Look, Della. The last couple of years have been hard on both of us. I didn’t know you were going through all that you did.
I just assumed you wanted nothing to do with this place.
Then, I find out Granddaddy left you half of the ranch, and I got fucking mad.
I resented you. But this changes things.
I can’t fault you for something you couldn’t control, and I certainly can’t be mad about how you chose to handle things afterward.
” I comb my fingers through my hair. “I don’t have all the answers.
I don’t know how to fix all that’s broken between us, but I do know that you belong here.
This is your home, and I’ll do whatever you need to feel safe here. ”
There’s no way I want her to go back to Copper Run. I get that she’s a grown woman and all that, but she shouldn’t be alone. She can build a life for herself here.
“You want to tell me about what happened with your job?”
She diverts her gaze away from me. “When you called to tell me about Granddaddy, I snapped after we got off the phone. I sent over what I had been working on to my boss, Luka, followed by my immediate resignation. The time I thought I would have with our granddaddy was gone. Realizing that broke my heart and made me aware of just how miserable I was.”
“Why do I feel like there is more to it than that?”
She sighs. “So, I was also having an affair with Luka.”
“Your boss.”
Her cheeks flush, and she nods. “After what happened to me, I didn’t allow myself to get close to anyone, but Luka and I were working long hours and it just happened.”
“I’m gonna stop you right there,” I say, holding up my hand. “I don’t need to know about your sex life.”
“Fair,” she says. We’re both silent for a moment, then she continues. “Maddox, I really don’t want to sell my half of the ranch. I can help. I have some savings. It’s not much, but it’s around forty-five thousand. We can use it.”
“There’s more to it than just buying you out.
Not too long ago, the CEO of an oil company approached me.
They want the land, and they’ll do anything in their power to get it.
A partnership with the Fallen Demons doesn’t just provide the working capital needed to turn this place around; it also grants us protection. ”
I can’t back out of the deal, but I can’t sell my sister’s share either.
“The morning you got bit by the snake, Shadow was here to present me an offer from the club. We hadn’t finished going over the details when Tyler alerted me that you were hurt.
Things kind of fell by the wayside, but I’m due to meet with them soon to accept the deal.
I’m not going to force you to sell your share, but this changes everything.
I can’t imagine they’ll take the deal completely off the table.
My guess is they’ll have a counteroffer for us. ”
“So we’re doing this together?” She asks, hope radiating from her.
After my talk with Amelia, I was already questioning things, but now, after knowing everything Della’s been through, I can’t go through with the original deal.
If she wants to make this work, and truly has a desire to make this place her home, then I’m not going to stand in her way. We’ll figure it out.
Together.
My gaze slides back to her, and I toss her a wink.
“It’s what Granddaddy wanted.”