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Second, there was a disinheritance clause.
“He put in a fucking disinheritance clause!” I punched Eli’s desk on a dry scream.
The more I read, the more my blood boiled. He’d appointed Josephine to be the executor. But that didn’t bother me as much as the main deal: Josephine Rebecca Spencer (née Ryler) was to inherit his entire estate. I was getting a measly ten million dollars.
The disinheritance provision meant that if I were to challenge the will in any way, I’d get nothing. Just an extra fuck you to his beloved only son.
Jo had just become filthy rich in her own right.
And I had just been reduced from an almost-billionaire to a man who was still rolling in it, but wasn’t going to make any Forbes lists anytime soon. Not that I cared. The money didn’t mean shit. Revenge did.
I said nothing while Eli watched me, his face wrinkled and wary.
I’d been blindsided.
My father knew all along that I hated him. Hell, maybe he’d even suspected my plans. I didn’t know how or why, just that Josephine was a step ahead of me all this time. I gulped down a sour ball of anger.
Eli came around to my side of his desk and sat beside me in a second chair. Plastering the will back onto the desk, we both read through it with hunched backs. The will was dated in June, ten years ago. My mind whirled with so many different emotions.
A bad year. A bad month.
“Anything weird happen around that time?” Eli echoed my thoughts. “Anything that could make your father change his mind about the provisions he set up in the prenup?”
My father had been open about the terms of the prenup. She got nothing if she ever filed for divorce. He used his money to keep her married to him, controlling her with the threat of being penniless.
So she’d stuck around. I wasn’t surprised he’d left her something after all these years. But everything? It looked like Jo was the one controlling him all along. That shouldn’t have been a surprise to me either. Fucking Jo. She’d been whispering in his ear again.
The will was dated shortly after I finished high school. After I threw Emilia out of California for good and everything went to shit. After I went off the rails completely…
Ten years ago was when Daryl died.
“Yeah.” I crushed the will between my fingers. “Jo was going through a difficult time. Her brother died. She may have strummed my dad’s emotions. I just…” I took a deep breath. “I guess I’ve always hated him, but it still hurts to know he hated me too.”
“I don’t understand why he’s always favored Josephine over you, but it’s time to move on with your life, son.” Eli knew what my friends didn’t.
When I was twenty-two, the HotHoles all came back to Todos Santos for Thanksgiving. We all stayed at Dean’s house and got plastered. I’d just gotten accepted to law school, so I thought it was a good idea to wander into Eli’s study in the middle of the night and look through his shit. He was there, and I was so drunk, so lost, so sad, that somehow, I’d ended up confiding in him about the abuse.
I’d kept my mouth shut about my mother’s murder, though, just like I had with Emilia.
I chose to handle justice myself, and I did. Until today.
Everything was collapsing. I was a walking, talking ghost. A no one. A man without a cause.
“Don’t let what they did to you define you. Find something else that makes you tick.” Eli’s voice shook with emotion. He didn’t care anymore that I’d fucked up his son’s face. Because my life was so much more fucked up than Dean’s ever would be. “Live, Baron. Live well. Don’t look back. And don’t ever visit that place again.”
He was talking about the mansion I’d planned to burn to the ground. The place where I was going to build a library to honor my mom.
When I walked out of Eli’s office, I collapsed on the steps leading to his patio and lit a joint. I fished out my cracked phone and called Emilia. She didn’t answer.
I called her again.
And again.
And again.
Then I started leaving voicemails. Voicemails that didn’t make any sense and that I knew for a fact I was going to regret. Her answering machine greeting was her singing in her sweet voice, followed by a breathless, girly giggle when she got to her punchline:
“Hey, this is Millie! Wanna hear a joke? Knock, knock! Who’s there? Not me, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!”
I don’t know what your fucking problem is, Help, but you need to get back to me because…because I’m your boss. I pay you good money. I’m waiting for your call.”
