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“This is about finally getting what I deserve. Finally getting what is mine.”
“What you deserve?” Sawyer’s tone grew increasingly more hostile. “You fucked us over, you bastard. You are lucky you have Lily in your life. Lucky I didn’t come after you with the full force of our global company. We let you bargain for your debt, and this is what you do?”
The man sat on the bed next to his weeping niece. “Honey, tell your boyfriends what they need to do.” He handed her the phone. “Go on.”
Lily wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
“No. No. Don’t say that. You didn’t do anything,” Jack tried to comfort her. “Are you ok? Has he hurt you? Just talk to us.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. He hasn’t hurt me.” She sniffed. “But he wants five-million dollars.”
Sawyer pressed his lips together. “Done.”
Jack looked at him. “Are you crazy? We aren’t paying him.”
“What else?” Sawyer asked. “What else does he want?”
She looked next to her toward her uncle. “Residual annual fees for my dowry.” The tears fell from her cheeks.
“What the fuck is a dowry?” Jack roared. “This is not the damn 1700s. What the hell is wrong with this man? He is a snake. The worst kind of sewer rat.”
Gino snatched the phone away. “If you want in on my family. If you want my niece, that is the price. Five million upfront and I’d say half a million each year after that should take care of it.”
“No,” Lily sputtered. “Don’t do it, Sawyer. Don’t even think about paying him. I’m not worth that much. Just let me go.”
Sawyer looked over at Jack. There was no doubt what they were going to do. Lily was worth more money in this world. Some shitty gangster wasn’t going to hang a price tag over her head.
“Tell the pilot to chart us for New York.”
He nodded. “Got it.” He would fly them himself if he had to. Jack pulled out his phone for the hangar and listened as Sawyer continued the call.
“We will be there tonight. If you hurt her, or even consider touching her, you’re going to regret it, Gino.”
Gino shot him a glare. “Get me the money.”
He hung up and the screen went blank.
Thirty-Six
Lily
The next few hours were torture. Uncle Gino ordered trays of room service while she huddled on the bed and waited. She listened to him eat with his mouth open. He had always been a slob. The kind of man who walked around with a stain on his shirt leftover from something smelly at lunch.
“Finally, you’re good for something, Lily. Good for something. I knew I did good taking you in.”
“Shut up,” she shouted. “This is completely illegal what you’re doing. It’s called extortion.”
“It’s money. Money you owe me. I deserve every fucking penny they are paying me.” He reached into a silver platter for a handful of French fries. At least if he was going to order room service at the Waldorf, he could have tried the lobster or something refined, but that was never who her uncle was.
He was the man who thought everyone owed him something. His deals would go sour, but he never could see the role he played in it. There was another person to blame. Someone else to take responsibility. He even blamed his sister for dying and leaving her child behind. That’s the kind of man he was.
“No one owes you anything. My parents left me money, which you could have used to pay for a roof over my head, or food on my plate, but you gambled it. You didn’t pay for me to go to college. I earned scholarships and worked two jobs to get through school. There was the time you had to pay something when I broke my arm. But I could write you a check for five hundred dollars. No one owes you a damn thing. You are insane.”
“That’s enough. Just like your mother, trying to talk down to me.”
Lily stood from the bed.
“Where are you going?” He eyed her.
