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“I am.” I looked out the window of my tiny condo, trying to get a read on the weather, since I hadn’t left the place in two
days. “I’m quitting stripping.”
“Well, hallelujah,” she said. “I’ve been hoping you’d do that for years. But, um, there’s something going on.”
I straightened away from the window. “What do you mean?”
“Devon’s been up to something all weekend,” she said. “He won’t tell me what it is, but when he’s cagey like this, I know it’s something big. He had nonstop meetings yesterday, and he was already gone when I woke up this morning. I just texted him and asked him what the hell he was up to, and he said that he and Max are getting your back pay.”
Oh, shit. “Devon and Max are getting my back pay?”
“What does that mean?” Olivia said. “Does that Trent creep owe you money?”
“Sort of,” I said, and then remembered that it didn’t matter anymore. “Yes. He owes me a lot of pay.”
“And you didn’t tell me?” She sounded hurt.
“I know. I’m an idiot. I confronted him about it last week and he told me to get a lawyer.”
“Well, you got one better,” she said. “You got Devon, and Max, and probably Ben. This, I have to see.”
We went to the Candy Cane offices together. The first thing we saw when we pulled into the parking lot was the receptionist, dumping her stuff into her car and getting in. “Fuck him,” she said when she saw me as she pulled out her keys. “I don’t need this shit.”
“What happened?” I asked her.
“He got fucking evicted!” she shouted, and drove away.
Olivia and I exchanged a glance. My stomach sank. Were Devon and Max too late? If Trent was evicted, I’d never see my money.
But when we walked into the building and up to the office, we found the door wide open, the front vestibule empty, and Trent’s office occupied by two men: Devon Wilder and Max Reilly.
Max was sitting behind Trent’s desk, frowning at his computer screen. Devon was lounging in a chair in the corner, looking through a sheaf of papers, but he looked up when we came into the doorway, his green eyes amused. “We’ve been busted,” he said to Max.
I stared at the two of them in shock, but my gaze stopped inevitably on Max. He was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, and his eyes were fixed on me. “What did you do?” I asked him.
“We evicted him,” Max said.
“How?”
He shrugged. “Devon and I bought the building.”
“We’re the landlords now,” Devon said, giving Olivia a wicked smile and returning to his papers. “This guy owes six months’ back rent, so that means the premises are now ours. As well as everything inside them.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Is that legal?”
“Let’s ask Ben, my lawyer,” Devon said, indicating his phone, which was sitting on the desk, obviously on speaker. “Ben, is this legal?”
Ben’s voice came into the room. “You really wanna know?”
“Just keep Devon out of jail again,” Max said to Ben’s speaker. “He didn’t get laid for two years.”
“On it,” Ben said.
I looked around, processing the idea that Candy Cane, Incorporated was no more. Next to me, my sister crossed her arms, her posture mimicking mine, and stared at Devon. “You two bought the whole building?” she said.
“It was cheap,” Devon pointed out to her. “Though I don’t know what we’re going to do with it now, because most of the renters have left and the location sucks.”
“Let’s get a pot dispensary for a tenant,” Max said, tapping the keyboard in front of him. “They’re legal now. We’ll make more money than we know what to do with.”
