Thaddeus stopped abruptly beside me. “What?”
“The council,” I huffed, shutting Ziggy in the house before following Tap down the front steps. “It’s the fucking council.”
“We’re leaving later than usual,” Tap muttered over his shoulder as he hoofed it down the path.
“Yeah,” I grumbled. “The bastards didn’t count on that, did they?”
Thaddeus’s bare feet padded across the deck after us. “What the hell are you guys talking about?”
I spun to face him. “If you’re coming with us, then you’ll need those.” I pointed to my spare pair of gumboots. Thaddeus screwed up his nose like I’d asked him to dive back into that compost pile. He shot me a look and I shrugged. “Your choice.”
“But I don’t understand.” He grabbed the oversized boots and slid them on with a barely concealed shudder. “Going with youwhere?”
“To battle, my trusty trespasser.” I headed off after Tap, punching the air. “To battle.”
CHAPTER FIVE
THADDEUS
What frickin’battle?
I stared after Ryder as he rounded the carport at the end of the path and disappeared from view. In the distance, the sound of a large truck idling and men shouting broke the cool still of the morning.
What the hell is going on?
There was only one way to find out.
I traipsed after Ryder, desperately trying not to lose my footing on the slick concrete or trip myself up in his oversized gumboots. I must’ve looked ridiculous in his baggy sweats and T-shirt with its pithy saying, but what could I do? The curiosity was killing me.
I rounded the carport onto the gravel driveway, barely avoiding a pothole, ankle-deep in water. A red truck was just visible through the trees, parked at the junction of Crighton and Storten Roads. Not that I needed a visual to know where they’d gone. All I had to do was follow the shouting. The very loud shouting.
Rounding the final corner of the long driveway, I almost barrelled into the back of a man wearing a council vest and a condescending smile. He was watching the argument play out between the driver of a large truck transporting a hefty bulldozer on the back and a furious Ryder standing on the wet verge beside the truck, all but brandishing his fists at the man.
“I have an injunction,” Ryder roared at the driver. “Which means you cannot legally set one foot on this property, let alone bulldoze my bloody fence.”
The driver threw up his hands. “Look, mate. I just do what I’m told. My boss sent me here to cut an access for the planned earthworks, and that’s what I’m going to do. The fact that some of your fence strays over the boundary into council land isn’t my problem. There was no mention made of any injunction or I wouldn’t be here, got it?”
I saw Ryder’s fists clench at his sides. “Andyouneed to get it through your head that there won’t be any earthworks or access road or bulldozing of my bloody fence anytime soon.” He confronted the man, his face flaming. “Not today. Notanyday. The ground is sodden, and you’re making a bloody mess ofmyland.” He indicated the deep tracks carved into the ground where the truck had been trying to swing around. “So, I suggest you head back to your depot and get that fucking dozer out of here,mate.” He all but spat the word.
But the driver was unmoved. “No can do, sorry. I have a boss to answer to, and I like my job... most days, present company excepted. We’ve worked in worse conditions than this, so, unless you can show me a piece of paper that clearly says I can’t do what I came to, then I’m gonna unload this thing and do my goddammed job. According to my boss, this is council land,notyours.” He revved the truck’s engine to make his point.
Ryder spun to where Tap was busy on his phone. “Please tell me they’re about to put you through.”
Tap shook his head. “They’re stalling. Greegan’s PA says Greegan is in a meeting. I told her we’d have their employees arrested for trespassing and property damage if she didn’t get her boss on the line quick smart. She says she’s trying, but he’s not picking up.”
Ryder grimaced. “They’re hoping that if they delay long enough, it’ll be too late. It might even help their case if the boundary fence is removed.” He turned back to the driver and reasserted his demand that they leave.
The council worker beside me spoke under his breath, “Your friend really needs to get out of the way. This isn’t going to achieve anything other than making him a lot of enemies. Tell him, before someone gets hurt.”
I bristled at the man’s words, automatically siding with Ryder without even knowing what the fight was about. “Whyareyou ripping down his fence?”
The man shrugged. “Hey, I don’t make the decisions; I just do what I’m told.”
I narrowed my gaze. “Come on. You must have some idea.”
The council worker sighed. “All I know is the guy’s lease expired a while back, and the council doesn’t plan to renew it. They want his land to build a—” He paused, frowning. “Jeez, I don’t really know what it’s called. A data store or something-or-other. I don’t even know what that means. Like I said, I just do what I’m told.”
Cold fear curled in my belly.Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. The software contract our company was going to bid on. The Elosand development was going to affect Ryder’s lease. It washisland that was involved.Hislitigation had to be the anonymous one cited as holding the process up.Fucking hell.
