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“Emerson, your father and you had an arrangement. No more Alistair once you were married. I was just expressing my surprise about seeing him on the grounds.” Bonnie smiles a wicked smile, knowing she just started some shit.
Emerson’s fingertips are squeezing my thigh so hard I’m going to have bruises. The vein in his neck is pulsing like a hummingbird’s wings, and he looks like he’s ten seconds away from snapping.
“That’s my fault, actually,” I interrupt. “Alistair said he was going to be stepping down as Emerson’s right hand, and I could tell that my husband was sad to be losing such a good friend. So I offered Alistair a job. He is now my personal guard.”
Total bullshit and I’m not sure why Alistair would need to step down, but I’m hoping the whole “women don’t need to know mafia business” takes care of that. Emerson and Alistair didn’t tell me why he had to step down, but now they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, or they’d have to tell me their secret, and Antonio doesn’t want that.
“And Emerson, you just agreed to this?” Antonio asks.
“He tried to put his foot down, but I insisted. They’ve been friends for so long. I don’t know why Alistair was quitting, but I didn’t want to see my husband lose a lifelong friend. Plus, he’s quickly becoming a close friend of mine as well.” I layer the bullshit on a little deeper.
“And why do you need a private guard?” Bonnie asks.
“I don’t plan to sit around the house all day being a trophy wife. I want to leave the house occasionally. Now that I’m Emerson Rossi’s wife, I’m sure I have unknown enemies, and with the need to carry an heir, I’d rather be safe than sorry. Not to mention that it’s obvious you don’t like me, Bonnie. So someone needs to make sure you don’t shove me down the stairs or poison my coffee.” I wink at her.
She opens her mouth to say something, but the staff enters the dining room to deliver the main course, silencing her. After they drop off our steaks and potatoes, Emerson announces he’s had enough chatting and it’s time to eat.
I flash Bonnie a quick smile before cutting a piece of steak.
CHAPTER 17
ALISTAIR
“So what does this mean?” I ask Landon. He’s one of my closest friends, next to Emerson, and also one of the best lawyers in the country.
Scarlett explained that she used some of her inheritance to pay for her schooling. But because Tobin forced her to marry Emerson, she had to drop out. We asked her what happened to the money she gave the school, and she told us she didn’t know. She thought she would be mailed a check, get a phone call, or something, but she hasn’t heard anything about it.
So, I called the school. It took some convincing, and by convincing, I threw my name around as well as Emerson’s and because Scarlett is married to Emerson, in the end, they confessed to returning the money to Tobin.
Only our understanding is that Scarlett should have had that money returned to her, not Tobin. She paid for it, not him.
Wanting to know what this bastard has been doing with her money, I pay Landon a visit while Emerson and Scarlett are attending their little family dinner.
“It means that Tobin paid off a judge and had everything Scarlett’s parents left for her transferred into his name. She was supposed to get everything the moment she turned twenty-one. The house, the cars, the vacation homes in Greece, Paris, and Rome as well as a small private island off the coast of Hawaii. But now, it says she’s only entitled to a million even though her family’s net worth is over a billion when you combine the old money of her deceased grandparents on both sides as well as her parents.”
“What the fuck!” I snarl, running a hand through my hair, grabbing at the strands. “That fucking rat bastard. Slimy fuck. He was nothing before his brother died. Nothing. And now he’s somehow deeply connected to the Rossi Mafia? No. We need to find a way to get that back to Scarlett. She’s meant to be a mafia queen and she damn well will be.”
Maybe not in the way she would have been with her parents still alive, but she is the heir of one of the biggest Mafia families in the world.
Now it makes sense why Tobin was eager to marry Scarlett off. She doesn’t know any better or how this world works. From what she told us, her parents did their best to keep her out of the inner workings of our world, giving her the best childhood possible. Then when they passed, Tobin isolated her. Now, I can see why. He didn’t want her to know anything about what was rightfully hers.
“What was originally left for Tobin?” I ask, peering down at the papers in front of us.
“Nothing,” he shakes his head. “Not a single thing. And here's the kicker too; Tobin wasn’t the one who was supposed to take custody of Scarlett if they passed.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I growl. “Are you telling me that fucking sack of shit kidnapped her?”
“Well, no, not really. But he did insert himself as her legal guardian. My bet is he paid off the judge, for all of this. The judge would have had a nice payday if he did.”
“So who would Scarlett have ended up with if Tobin didn’t scheme his way into her life?”
“Isabella Corbin. Scarlett’s mother’s youngest sister.” He pulls something up on his computer. “She lives a few states over. A nice quiet life. From the looks of it, she seems like a really sweet woman. Has a husband and three little girls of her own.”
My heart hurts for my cupcake. If it wasn’t for Tobin, she would have lived a much better life. One where she could have been happy, instead of being controlled or used by that fucker.
“Fucking hell.” I run a hand over my face. “What do we do? How do we get Scarlett her money back?”
“You could take him to court and fight him for it. You would win, but it would take some time to put in motion. That would also put a target on Scarlett’s back. You don’t go down without a fight when it comes to that kind of money. Or…” He looks up at me with a knowing look.
