CHAPTER 43 #2
“We’ve gone over all our options,” I explain. “This really is the only way.”
Ash is staring at his glass of water. I know that look. Deep down, he’s still an analyst and he’s running through all the scenarios. After a moment, he looks up. “Okay, I’m with you. We’ll do it together, but I don’t think you’re clear on the details.”
I lean back in my chair, not comfortable with what he just said. Knowing Ash, I suspect I’m about to get a big dose of reality and from the discerning look in his eyes, I already know I’m not going to like it. “Not clear? What am I missing?”
He sits up straight, and not one to mince words, he comes right out with it. “You said we’d have to take on investors or take the company public. Neither of those are options.”
“Why not?”
“Think about it. Who’s going to invest in a company that just lost over a hundred million because the owners defaulted on a contract, and for no other reason than they changed their minds a few weeks after they made the deal in the first place?
No one would trust us after that, which means there’s no way we could do a public offering—or secure any investors, for that matter. ”
I run my fingers through my hair. It’s a stress move as I sit here trying to work this out. “I’m confused. Elsie said that’s what would happen.”
“I’m pretty sure she knew it was all a lie. Elsie isn’t stupid, and if I could figure it out, you know she was two steps ahead and already understood how this would play out.”
My heart sinks in my chest. “Why would she do that?”
His lip curls and I can read him like a book. For reasons I don’t understand, not yet anyway, it’s like he’s proud of our sister for trying to deceive us. But why?
“Isn’t it obvious?” he says. “She’s not willing to put our future happiness on the chopping block just so she can save her company. You know how she is. We always come first.”
I have to mull that over and it takes about a second to realize he’s right.
Of course our sister would do something like this.
She’s always thinking, always playing chess, and this was a clever move on her part.
She was giving me and Ash an out, but not an easy one, so we’d be forced to decide if it was really worth it.
I know what would have happened if we still decided to quit the show.
She would have let us, then fought like hell to pick up whatever pieces were left, but at the same time, she would have felt it was worth it if it meant we were happy.
She’s not a monster like people think. She’d choose us over her company every time, just like there isn’t anything Ash and I wouldn’t do for her.
I turn to my brother. “What do you want to do?”
“Well,” he begins. “The way I see it, if we do this, if we just say fuck it and walk away, Elsie won’t recover from a loss like that.
No one could. At the same time, I think she’s made it clear that she’s willing to do it, to give up everything for us, so the real question is, are we willing to let her, and as far as that goes, are we willing to lose everything with her? ”
I’m not willing to give up on Maddie. There has to be a way. “Okay, so no public offering, no investors. I get all that, but in my mind, that just means we have to outsource the manufacturing. We’ll take our hits, but we keep the company.”
“Maybe.”
For fuck’s sake. “Okay, why maybe?”
A young waitress appears ready to take our orders.
The café is nice enough with an array of vintage fishing gear and old photos of wildlife decorating the walls.
As I look around the table, all the shaking heads indicate we’re feeling the same—not particularly hungry at the moment, so I turn to the girl.
“Can you give us a minute? I’ll wave you over when we’re ready.
Her bright smile is a sharp contrast to the mood hanging over us and no one smiles back. Poor girl. When she’s gone, I turn back to Ash. “So why maybe?”
He leans in, takes a drink from his glass of water again, then rests his elbows on the table.
“Well, for starters, I’ve heard rumblings that the military hasn’t been happy for a while now.
I haven’t spoken to Elsie about it, but my understanding is there have been too many defects.
That’s why she was investing so heavily in her new manufacturing plant.
If the rumors are true, the components she’s having made in India are showing up with all kinds of problems.”
“Wait,” Rhonda says. “Why haven’t you talked to your sister about this? Don’t you own as much of the company as she does?”
I grimace. “There’s this invisible line that we don’t cross.”
Ash is nodding in agreement. “Yeah, we learned a long time ago to stay out of the business side of things. Elsie considers that her lane and she respects our lane which is inventing new products and creating content. It’s an unwritten rule, what we call the invisible line.
We stay out of her business, and she stays out of ours. ”
Maddie turns to Ash. “So, let me see if I understand this.” There’s an unmistakable edge to her tone, so I already know where this is headed.
“If you and Riggs pull out, not only will you have to pay a ginormous penalty to the network, but you could end up losing the military contracts because your sister wouldn’t be able to do the manufacturing herself, which she needs to do because the parts made overseas aren’t working right, and when you lose the military contracts, you pretty much go bankrupt and lose everything? ”
Ash nods. “We wouldn’t even be able to do our own YouTube channel for three years. There’s a non-compete clause in the network’s contract about that.”
“You mean I might have to support you?” Rhonda asks but with a little more excitement than there should be for this situation. It’s a total shit show, so where’s the silver lining that only she can see?
Ash shakes his head and gives her a stern, “We’re not doing an Only Fans account. Never going to happen.”
“But baby,” she whines biting her lip, “it would be so fun.”
“Didn’t see that one coming,” I mutter under my breath.
Clearly Ash has met his match, which is all the more reason we need to figure out how to hold on to these girls.
Ignoring the whole sex-worker option, I try to get us back on track with, “How bad would it actually be? Would I need to go back to being an engineer?”
Ash turns more serious. “It’s hard to say.
When the dust settles, yeah, we might need to go back to our old jobs.
But even that could be tricky. There’s a good chance this will make the news, at least in the financial sectors.
Everyone already knows who we are, and this could be portrayed as a scandal, or worse, that we’re two unstable lunatics who self-destructed.
If that happened, it might be a while before anyone would be willing to take our resumes. ”
“I don’t understand. You just said you were with me on this.”
This whole thing is turning into a roller coaster from hell, and I don’t know how much more I can take. I wonder what Maddie is thinking. This has to be just as hard, if not worse for her.
“I am with you,” Ash says confidently. “Let’s say it all goes south. It’s just another adventure. We’ll figure it out like we always do. Hell, not knowing what happens next or where our next meal is coming from sounds like the perfect gypsy life to me.”
I understand what he’s saying, but the girls don’t.
There’s no way they could, so I turn to Maddie.
“It’s a fantasy Ash and I have talked about since we were kids, living like gypsies, traveling around the world, getting odd jobs to pay for food and travel.
The idea of not knowing what comes next always appealed to us, but things are different now. ”
Maddie is shaking her head at me like she can’t believe what she’s gotten herself into.
“Different how?” she demands. Her tone is anything but patient.