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“Wait, what?” Lorenzo asked.
“Are you out of your mind?” Finn asked.
“Daddy?” I asked.
The conversation stopped and my father turned his angry gaze onto me. His eyes raked up and down my body as the lawyer sighed with relief, glad he was no longer being yelled at. I knew how he felt. I knew what it felt like to be berated and bombarded by the booming voice of my father. I stepped away from my brothers and into the room, praying that I was making the right choice.
Maybe this would win a conversation with Travis.
“And where in the world have you been?” my father asked.
“Out. Listen, I don’t think the gas line is a good idea,” I said.
I felt everyone in the room staring at me as my father snickered.
“And what makes you think that? You know, since you’re so knowledgeable and independent now,” he said.
“For one, taking out the mountainside creates a risk for rockslides. Someone getting hurt laying that pipeline is going to run you an exorbitant cost with regard to medical claims. And that risk doesn’t go away once you level part of the mountainside. You create unstable fissures with the explosions to the side of the mountains, and if rockslides form or if part of the mountain collapses, it could crack the pipeline and leak thousands of gallons of gas into Kettle,” I said.
I watched as a grin appeared on our lawyer’s face.
“Excuse me?” my father asked.
“It’ll take you millions more to route the gas line around the mountains, but it’ll be safer for the town and the people working. You can either spend the money making the pipeline safer and more stable, or you can spend it repairing cracks in the pipeline and paying out of the company’s pocket in medical expenses when claims are filed,” I said.
“You have no business coming in here after everything you have put this family through—after everything you have put your own mother through—and tell me what to do with my business,” my father said.
“You said it before. You created all of this for us, right? So why can’t we have a say in what happens with the company?” I asked.
“Because I’m still running it. And as far as I’m concerned, all of my ungrateful children don’t deserve any of it,” my father said.
“She’s right,” our lawyer said. “You do run all of those risks.”
“Shut up, Michael. You can’t even do your own damn job right,” my father said.
“You can’t force the federal government to intervene on this topic,” Michael said. “You can’t use the money you donated to the president’s campaign as a way to strongarm him into this. They could shut you down for something like that.”
“I’m trying to better this town, and that fucking Benson family is standing in the way of that! My media tactics didn’t work, the threatening letters haven’t worked. Hell, they’re shooting at the scouts I send into the woods,” my father said.
“Wait. Media tactics?” I asked.
That was why the name Travis Benson sounded so familiar. My father was the one who waged war against them in the media. All of those propaganda-like commercials he ran against their company. Why the hell could I not recall that company’s name?
“Shut up and go stand with your mother,” my father said.
“No,” I said. “Our company is the one that made those awful commercials against the Benson family?” I
asked.
“How do you know that name? And why the hell do you think this is your company, you ungrate, inconsiderate child?” my father asked.
“I can’t remember the name of the company, but I do remember their names. You slaughtered that man in the media. You painted him to be an absent father. A feeble-minded man who didn’t know how to run his own company. Why would you do that?” I asked.
“You want to be an adult, yet you can’t comprehend why adults do specific things? Sounds like your mother more and more everyday,” my father said.
“You can’t run that gas line through the mountains. It will destroy them. You can have your pipeline and the mountains can stay intact. There is a solution here that gives everyone what they want,” I said.
“That isn’t how businesses are run, sweetheart. That isn’t how empires are made,” my father said.
