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He walked to the back of the room and stared out the sliding doors into the night. The mountains were shrouded in darkness, but the horse barn at the back end of the parking lot had a soft glowing light. His father was a real piece of work, but this…this was beyond the pale.
“Okay, Rory, start from the beginning.”
Rory sat down heavily on the couch and ran his hands through his hair. He looked wrung out, and Dalton immediately felt bad for yelling a few minutes ago. But, hell, a man had died on his watch today. He was already strung tighter than a Stradivarius.
“Are you okay?” Dalton asked.
Rory shrugged. “Not exactly. This will thing. It’s a lot.”
“Do you want to find a meeting? I might be able to track one down.” He was pulling out his phone.
“No. It’s fine. I went to one after leaving the lawyer’s office. I…just needed?—”
“You don’t have to explain. This is a nightmare. Go to all the meetings you need.” He took a seat in the chair that was to the right of his brother.
“Thanks,” Rory said as he put his feet up on the coffee table.
“I’m sorry.” Dalton hadn’t meant to blurt it out. Now wasn’t the time, but he’d been thinking about it for a while now, and he knew he owed his younger brother a major apology.
Confusion shadowed Rory’s face and his brows lowered. “For what?”
“For not realizing earlier that you were struggling, that you needed help.” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “I knew you were having a rough time, and I should’ve helped you somehow. I guess I didn’t really understand how much you were being crushed by everything.”
Rory didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Dalton, me being an alcoholic is not your fault. It’s a disease; one I’ve been fighting for a long time. Dad…did not make life easy for any of us. It wasn’t up to you to take care of all of us. That was his job, and he failed miserably at it. You did the best you could. We all did. Some of us just managed it differently than others. It’s mine to deal with, not yours. Just knowing you support me is enough.”
Dalton’s chest got tight. It didn’t matter what his little brother said, he knew deep down he was responsible. He’d been off making a name for himself in the racing world when he should’ve been home looking after his four siblings. His father sucked at parenting. His mom had been the one that kept everyone on the straight and narrow, kept everyone going. Once she died, everything had fallen apart. He’d just been so happy to escape, get out from under the old man’s thumb, that he’d left his siblings at their father’s mercy.
Rory shook his head. “Let it go, Dalton. We have bigger problems.”
Dalton leaned back in the chair. “Dad had a second will drawn up by someone in Munich because he knew Hank would argue with him about it.”
“Yep. Hank called and said the lawyer reached out to him this week to inform him of the will.”
“But it’s been six months,” Dalton protested.
“Yeah. The lawyer, Otto Dietrich, said he was over in the U.S. for work for several months, and then he had a family crisis. He just got back to the office this week. He wasn’t told immediately that Dad had died. He happened to hear a small blurb about him during some race he was watching, and that’s when he found out. Dad told him Hank would reach out when the time came but, of course, Dad neglected to tell Hank about it. Anyway, just another mix-up courtesy of our old man.”
“So, how bad is it? I mean, there was nothing really left. The team is in massive debt and the garage and stuff right along with it. Besides, who the hell would want any of this? What could be so different in this will?”
Rory slouched deeper into his chair and let out a long breath. He met Dalton’s gaze. “Dad left fifty-one percent of Hughes Racing to a man named Lorenzo Bianchi.”
Dalton stared at his brother. Fifty-one percent of the company… The words swirled in his head. To some…stranger. “What?” He couldn’t have heard his brother right. “Say that again?”
“Dalton, I know, I can’t get my brain around it either. but it’s true. Dad left fifty-one percent of Hughes Racing to Lorenzo Bianchi.”
“Who the fuck is Lorenzo Bianchi?” Dalton demanded. His brain was on fire. The loud buzzing in his ears threatened to overwhelm him. It was as if the whole world shifted on its axis, and he was struggling to regain his equilibrium. “Lorenzo Bianchi,” he repeated. The name rang a faint bell. He put his head in his hands. What the fuck had their father done? “Was he in debt to this guy or something?”
“The lawyer didn’t know. He didn’t seem to know much. Everything else is the same as the old will.”
“There is nothing else!” Dalton roared. “The whole fucking will was Hughes Racing. We’ve worked our asses off for the company, and he left the majority share to a—a stranger? What the fucking hell was he thinking?”
He finally looked at his brother. Rory was pale and his eyes sad. This news was crushing to Dalton, and Rory knew that he had been the one to deliver the worst news possible to his brother. “Shit, Rory, I just… I don’t know what to say.”
“I know, brother.” He reached out and squeezed Dalton’s leg. “It’s just dumbfounding. There are no words for this one. Dad?—”
“Screwed us once again. I thought we were done with his stupid shit, but he left us with one last eff-you.” Dalton wanted to throw something hard at the wall, but instead, he asked, “Do you know the name, Lorenzo Bianchi? It sounds familiar somehow. I know I haven’t met him. Did Dad mention him? Was he a silent partner or something?”
Rory shook his head. “I don’t know him, but…”
