Page 117 of Trick or Tease

That was just a little funny.

The moment Ron spotted me, he exploded. “What the fuck kind of hillbilly nightmare did you send me into?” he shouted, brushing hay off his jacket with violent swipes. “Those goddamn kids kept jumping out at me, screaming like banshees! One of them grabbed my ankle and I nearly had a heart attack!”

“Ron, keep your voice down.”

“Don’t tell me to keep my voice down!” His voice got even louder, drawing stares from families nearby. “I’ve been calling you all day, and instead of handling business like a professional, you send a bunch of teenage psychopaths after me!”

I glanced around nervously as more people started gathering, drawn by his increasingly loud rant. Parents were pulling their kids closer. I could see some of the local volunteers looking concerned.

I held up my palms in what I hoped was a calming motion. “Look, let’s go somewhere private where we can talk about this⁠—”

“Talk about what? There’s nothing to talk about!” Ron gestured wildly at the farm around us, his voice dripping with disdain. “Why anyone would pay a dime for this godforsaken place is beyond me, but we’ve got some dumb shit client on the hook who’s willing to pay top dollar, so let’s make it happen!”

“Ron, please.”

“Please what? Please continue to waste my time while you play farmer with your yokel brother?” He stepped closer to me, his voice carrying across the field. “I don’t know what kind of spell this backwater shithole has cast on you, but you need to snap out of it and remember who signs your paychecks!”

A small crowd had definitely gathered now. I could see Billy pushing through the group, his face filled with anger. Sabrina was there too, her arms crossed, watching the whole scene unfold with barely concealed disgust.

“That’s enough,” I said firmly, trying to grab Ron’s arm and steer him away from the crowd. “Let’s go talk in the house. You’re causing a secene.”

He yanked his arm away from me. “Don’t touch me! You know what your problem is, Garrett? You’ve forgotten where you came from. Well, let me remind you—you came from nothing. This place is nothing. These people are nothing. And if you think I’m going to let you throw away a seven-million-dollar deal because you’ve gotten sentimental about some corn maze and a haunted house, you’re out of your goddamn mind!”

The words hung in the air. I could feel the eyes of everyone around us, could sense their shock and anger at hearing their home and their community dismissed so callously.

“Dicks,” Sabrina cursed. “Birds of a feather.”

She stormed away.

Ron reached into his jacket and pulled out another copy of the contract, waving it in my face like some kind of weapon. “Enough of this bullshit,” he snarled. “Get your hayseed brother over here so we can get this done. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

Something inside me snapped. Maybe it was the way he said “hayseed brother” like Billy wasn’t worth the time to learn his name. Maybe it was seeing the hurt and anger on the faces of people I had grown up with, people who had welcomed me back with open arms while I had been secretly planning to betray them. Or maybe it was just that I finally understood what really mattered.

“Back the fuck off, Ron,” I said, stepping closer to him. “No one makes fun of my brother like that.”

His eyes widened with shock, then narrowed with fury. “Excuse me? Did you just threaten me? Do you have any idea who you’re talking to? I made you, Hogan. I pulled you out of this nowhere town and gave you a real career, a real life. And this is how you repay me?”

“By standing up to a bully who thinks money gives him the right to shit on good people?” I could feel my hands shaking with rage. “Yeah, this is exactly how I repay you.”

Ron’s face turned an ugly shade of purple. “You ungrateful piece of trash. When I’m done with you, you’ll never work in law again. I’ll make sure every firm from here to California knows what kind of disloyal twat you are.”

I’d heard enough. I grabbed the contract from his hands and ripped it in half, then in half again, then kept tearing until it was nothing but confetti. I threw the shreds right in his shocked face, watching them flutter down like snow.

“You’re done, Hogan,” he sputtered, pieces of paper sticking to his hair. “Don’t bother coming back to the firm. Don’t bother coming back to the city once I get you blacklisted everywhere. You’ll be lucky to get a job defending drunk drivers in traffic court.”

“Go fuck yourself, Ron,” I said. The words felt better than any closing argument I had ever delivered. Better than finalizing a billion-dollar deal. “And get the hell off my family’s property. I would suggest you don’t come back. These hicks and yokels know how to run tractors that dig really big holes. And they know a lot about compost and fertilizer.”

Ron stared at me. I realized he probably didn’t understand the threat. He was more of a city boy than I had become. He didn’t know shit about farming.

“Are you threatening me, Hogan?”

I offered an innocent smile. I was a lawyer after all. No way in hell was I admitting anything.

“I didn’t hear a threat,” I said with a shrug. “Just a kind word of advice.”

“I will destroy you,” he hissed.

“Uh-oh, counselor. Did you just threaten me in front of a hundred witnesses?” I asked, grinning.