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They both went quiet, and when I glanced at Gracie, I could see how tense her shoulders had become. “Matt would never do that,” she bit out.
“I-I know,” I agreed. “But how many people in this town would believe Matt over my father? Campbell even said he had pictures of Steph and her friend beaten bloody.”
“What’s his agenda?” Mr. Jenkins asked, his eyes unreadable, his voice neutral.
“He hates Matt and every other member of the MC,” I said with a shrug. “Without them here, he can finally run Creswell Springs the way he has always envisioned.”
“You mean by tearing down Hannigans’ and the strip club and the clubhouse. Building hundred-dollar-a-plate restaurants and five-star resorts. He wants to run off anyone who doesn’t earn more than half a million a year and make Creswell Springs into a country club town,” the old lawyer spat out.
“Basically,” I mumbled.
“Did you know about the bank account he wanted me to have your mother’s money transferred into?” he demanded, but his tone was less harsh now, kinder. I shook my head. “He tried to steal from you.”
“Nothing unusual about that, Mr. Jenkins. He’s been keeping the monthly allowance my mother provided for me for himself, and all I’ve had to live on is the limited credit cards he gave me.”
“I’m sorry, Rory, but your father is nothing but a greedy bastard,” Gracie said as she straightened.
“Agreed.”
“I don’t want you to worry,” Mr. Jenkins told me as he shifted in his chair. “I’m not going to let him get his filthy hands on your money.”
I slouched down in my chair, feeling both physically and emotionally drained. “I honestly don’t care if he takes every last dime. I would happily give it all to him if…”
I broke off and jerked upright in the chair, my eyes widening as I realized the answer was so easy. Fuck, why hadn’t I thought of it before?
I knew he wanted that money, but just how badly?
“Mr. Jenkins, how much money did my mother leave for me?” I’d never questioned it, never cared enough to want to know before.
“Somewhere around two hundred and fifty million,” he said with a casual shrug.
I just sat there blinking at the man. My mom had come from old money, and I knew without her ever having to tell me that the majority of the reason my father had married her was because of that. Sure, he’d had his own money, but it had never come close to what my mother was used to.
With the money just sitting in my trust waiting for me to turn twenty-one, Derrick Michaels could surely buy himself the governor’s seat if he wanted it bad enough.
“If…” I paused and licked my lips. My eyes were red-rimmed but dry now. “If my father resigned as mayor, who would take over in his place?” Creswell Springs didn’t have a deputy mayor, thank God. I had little doubt if there were a second-in-command, he would have been just as corrupt as my father.
Jenkins scratched his chin, thinking about my question. “I guess if your father resigned early, there would be a special election to appoint someone in his place.”
“Such as?”
“That I couldn’t tell you.”
“Wh-what about you?” I threw out there.
He snorted, but Gracie was giving him a considering once-over. “No one would vote for me, Rory. They know me too well.”
“Which is exactly why they would vote for you,” his protégé assured him. “I don’t know what Rory is thinking right now. But I have to tell you, Jenkins, if that idiot was out of office and you were up for the position, you would get my vote.”
“That’s not likely to happen, Gracie.”
“Maybe.” A devilish smile started to lift at my lips, and my earlier feelings of being weak and powerless transformed in my chest. Maybe this crazy idea I had wasn’t what my mother had intended when she had left me everything, but she had told me she was giving it to me so that I wouldn’t ever have to worry about being under my father’s thumb again. And that was exactly what that money was going to accomplish. “Maybe not.”
“That smile is kind of terrifying,” Gracie muttered, but her own smile was shining out of her eyes. “Tell me more.”
Chapter Fourteen
RAIDER
