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“Your mother is a beautiful woman and an excellent partner,” Liam says with a creepy sweetness. “But she doesn’t have the head for running this kind of operation on her own.”
“I could have run things with you,” Emmett argues.
“Really, son.” She smirks pityingly. “That’s laughable. This is how things should be. Now hurry and sign the papers. Liam can be a very impatient man.”
Malcolm straightens his gun and lurches, making me think he might pull the trigger at any second, causing me to scream. Emmett looks to me in desperation, knowing his time is running out.
He gapes. “It’s like you’ve brainwashed them. What is wrong with you!” he screams at his mother. “You could have had a chance at a better life! One where you weren’t always cowering down before Dad! If you wanted to help run the company, we could have done it together. Things could have been better!”
“Your father was the way he was for a reason,” she says with a cool voice as she pulls a cigarette from Liam’s desk drawer and lights up. “He ran everything the way he did for a reason. It’s just how things have to be, Emmett.” Her tone turns condescending. “Don’t take it so personally. Sign over everything, and we’ll let you and your little girlfriend go.”
“Now you can be penniless and directionless, just like your little white trash whore,” Bernadette snickers heartlessly.
With a heavy sigh, Emmett nods, prompting the guy who had been restraining him to shove him towards the stack of papers and force the pen in his hand. In a painfully slow process, Liam flips through each page, pointing out where Emmett needs to sign and initial. It’s ridiculous. Like he’s selling him a car or a house. You’d never know by looking at Liam that I was being held at gunpoint in the corner of the room and that Emmett was signing away absolutely everything his father had left him.
Malcolm shoves me into Emmett’s arms with violent force once everything is signed. He leads me towards the door, stopping only once to turn back and look at what’s left of his family. They barely even look up to acknowledge him, much less say goodbye. It’s like he’s invisible now.
“Are you okay?” he asks me softly. I nod and look back at all of them, standing there and flipping through the newly-signed papers.
“So now what?” Emmett asks from the doorway.
“So now nothing,” his mother responds, waving her hand dismissively. “I’ve left a little bit of money in your bank. Not enough to survive on, but it will get you by until you figure something else out.”
“Maybe Ophelia will loan you some money,” Bernadette cackles.
“What…you’re disowning me?” Emmett asks earnestly. “You already have everything you wanted. W
hy cast me out like this?”
The snide grin fades from his mother’s face, turning into a cold, dead, and serious stare. She flicks her cigarette into an ashtray and prances evenly over to him, stopping near his ear. “Oh, son. You think I don’t know?” she hums quietly. “You think I don’t know about what you did to your father?”
“What are you talking about…” he stammers.
“Your little deal with Theo Nickelson,” she hisses. “You might as well have been holding the gun yourself. You killed your father.”
I can’t take it anymore. I can’t stand here while she tries to make Emmett feel bad after everything she’s done. “Well, if you’ve been up Liam’s ass this whole time anyway, just waiting for your chance to run the company,” I chime in, “why do you care what Emmett did? You said you were glad Thomas was gone.”
She shrugs cavalierly. “It doesn’t change the way things work around here. You can’t just take out the crown of the hierarchy around here and expect not to suffer the consequences.”
“You people are all seriously fucked up,” I blurt out.
“I knew what you did, Emmett,” Bernadette grunts resentfully. “I came and told Liam. He was the one who let Mom know.”
“I thought you were smarter than that, Emmett,” Liam scolds. “You know what happens to people who mess with the Elites. You know a thing or two about that yourself, don’t you, Ophelia? So now you’ll walk away with nothing.”
“And if I were you…I’d get out of town,” Malcolm adds. “Now the Elites will rise back to where we belong. And once the entire town is under our control again, the police, the school, everyone you pass on the street will know you’re blacklisted.”
“I thought you hated the Elites,” I remind him, feeling stupid for ever buying into his act that he was so different.
“Only because I wasn’t one of them.” He shrugs.
Liam nods in agreement. “We refused to be under Thomas Jameson’s rule.”
“My father and I have always known we could run things better than him,” Malcolm explains. “We planned to take your father down the same way everyone else was going down. But then Theo stepped in and started messing around. But thank him for us, by the way. Killing Thomas turned out to be a much more convenient outcome than just sending him to jail.”
“Why help me look into Bernadette’s phone data, then?” I ask in confusion. “If you knew she was here the whole time!”
“You two are a fucking mess.” He smirks. “It was too much fun playing with you. You made it so easy. You were so convinced Vivian was behind everything and that she was trying to steal Emmett from you. Pointing you in her direction was too entertaining to pass up.”
