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After a quick bitter laugh, he said, “Fuck no. This shit is messed all the hell up. I mean, I knew she wasn’t right in the head. She could never be trusted. She’d never been warm and nurturing, but Jesus Christ, she was still my mom. I never expected… This.”
“I’m sorry.”
When he closed his eyes and leaned into my hand, I kissed his cheek. “I’ll make sure you get every penny my dad promised you in his will.”
His eyes shot open and he scowled. “That is the very last thing on my mind right now.”
I shrugged. “But it’s easier for me to think about that than… Everything else.”
“True.” Clearing his throat, he glanced around the dingy workroom that had become significantly dustier since I’d stopped working here. “Why the hell did you come down here, anyway?”
I shrugged. Good question. “It was familiar,” I said. And I’d needed something familiar.
The door opened. Hayden poked his head inside. “There you two are.” He stepped through the doorway and glanced around the room as if he’d never entered it before, which I don’t think he had.
I climbed off Brick and dusted my slacks with my hands, physically putting myself back to rights again because nothing inside me felt right at the moment.
Brick stood as well. “You stay for the entire meeting?” he asked. When Hayden nodded, Brick lifted his eyebrows. “And?”
Hayden’s gaze sought me. He looked concerned. “All the lawyers agreed that Nash Corporation still owns fifty percent, so you won’t be able to own the whole company as your father intended. But the profit Lana made from the transaction goes entirely to you. It’ll be up to you and the Nashes to figure out if either of you wants to buy the other out.”
I hugged myself, thinking of Ezra. Why did he suddenly feel like the enemy? The them? This was so crazy, and bizarre, and messed up. It was just totally and completely wrong.
Seeing the pain on my face, Brick hissed a curse under his breath and ran a hand through his hair. “And how the hell is Lana supposed to pay it back to Kaitlynn from jail?”
Hayden shook his head. “They’ll probably liquidate all her assets and give a lion’s portion of the share to Kaitlynn, as she deserves. They’re hers anyway, despite how much she’s owed from the Nash transaction. All the money Lana’s spent or hoarded since Arthur’s death was his. It rightfully belongs to Kaitlynn.”
That news made my head spin. It was too much to deal with right now. Pressing a hand to my head, I muttered, “I don’t want it.” It had lost my dad his life. “I just want my family’s company. That’s it.”
Brick patted my back. “Well, you got it, kid. Er… At least, half of it.”
I glanced at my two stepbrothers. My family. They’d both just gone through exactly what I’d gone through, but they seemed worried about me. A flare of love and belonging swept through me. It was both wonderful and frightening to know I could rely on them for any kind of support. Needing exactly that right now, I tested the waters by clutching my face between two hands and asking, “What do we do now?”
Hayden blew out a long breath, looking drained, so Brick answered, “Well, you’re going home. You’re going to take a day just to process and let everything soak in. Then, after a long hot bath, maybe some alcohol, and a good night’s sleep, you can figure out all the answers to life’s mysteries in the morning.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry about it today,” Hayden reiterated. “Brick’s right. I think we all need a break for the time being. We can start dealing with the fallout tomorrow.”
And so, I went home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
At home, the first thing I saw when I stepped into my apartment was the big box window that looked so much like the one in Ezra’s bedroom, and I burst into tears.
To escape painful reminders, I fled to my room, only to remember everything we’d done on my bed together. I already knew I’d only summon a memory of him cooking grilled cheese sandwiches in my kitchen if I went there, and basically, there was nowhere else in my apartment to go after that, so I shut myself in my bathroom and curled into a ball on the closed lid of the toilet seat.
It felt as if my dad had just died, all over again. But this time, he’d been murdered.
By Lana.
How had she done it to make it look like a heart attack? I’d read this true crime book once about some doctor lady who’d fed her husband some kind of exotic beans or something that wouldn’t reveal anything unusual in a toxicology report as she’d made him sicker and sicker over time. Was that how Lana had done it? Had she poisoned my dad slowly over time? Or had she given him one big dose to kill him quickly?
The questions made me feel sick to my stomach. I clutched my abdomen and wiped at my wet cheeks, trying to calm myself.
But it felt as if I’d failed him. I should’ve known. I mean, I’d never liked her. I hadn’t trusted her, but I hadn’t really seen much of her darker side until after his death when she’d immediately kicked me out on the streets and told me I was responsible for burying him. I guess she’d put on a pretty face for his benefit while he’d been alive. And I’d bought into it too, just as he had.
I felt like such a fool.
