I want to snap my eyes to his. The shock of what he’s saying is making my head spin. I didn’t even know about this.
“Ah, I can tell by your shocked and wonderfully terrified faces that you really did think I would never find out. Isn’t it just fucking good fortune that I showed up when I did? I don’t fucking want your company. I didn’t when you assumed I did and I didn’t when I was fighting to rebuild my life twelve years ago. But you can be sure of one fucking thing—I don’t care if it sinks you in the ground. You want my shares—take them. I know you need my signature to sell and you need to sell just to keep afloat.”
I can see the wheels turning in their heads. They think they’ve won.
“Just like that?” Mason asks.
“Just fucking like that. Oh . . . I forgot. I won’t accept a check since I’m pretty sure it would bounce to the fucking moon. You want them, then be prepared to bleed that money you don’t fucking have.”
“We don’t have that kind of money,” his brother fumes.
“Well, then, I guess I’m not fucking going anywhere.” He laughs.
“Is this what you think will intimidate us? Coming into my home with your slut and acting like we give a shit?”
My eyes narrow at Mercedes.
“That’s the thing, Mercedes. I don’t really give a shit what you think.”
“You loved me once.” It sounds like she is trying to talk herself into that one.
“I didn’t fucking love you. I’ll admit I thought I did, but that’s what happens when you have a bitch willing to spread her legs. You were easy, Mercedes. Let’s not get that thought crossed with any affection you might think I have left for you.”
“You were going to marry me.”
“Jesus fuck, Mercy! I’m right fucking here,” his brother yelps.
“Diana,” Maddox speaks, ignoring the domestic argument happening between his brother and sister-in-law. “Find your precious lawyer, Jefferson, and get this shit rolling. I don’t really give a damn if you have to sell this very house to be able to afford to buy me out. You want it that much, make it happen.”
She doesn’t look happy about it, but she stomps out of the room.
Before she can get too far, Maddox calls out for her. I watch has she walks back in with a little less supremacy than she had earlier.
“And you, Mason. You might think you’ve won. You have the girl you think I want. You have this shithole in Texas and a company six months from bankruptcy. But, brother, you will never have the world because I already fucking found it. I’m worth more than you will ever see in your lifetime and I’m not only talking about the money piling up in my bank. I have everything you wish you had. And the best thing? I have a woman who loves me for everything I am and ever will be. One who isn’t just with me because of some purse or shoe she wants at the moment. So . . . Check. Mate. Motherfucker.”
“I’ll fucking kill you,” he spits.
“You could fucking try, but even with my hands tied behind my back, I would snap you in two.”
Mason’s face goes pale before he storms out of the room, slamming the door in his wake. His mother hasn’t moved from her spot. She looks at Maddox with shock and maybe a little respect.
“Maybe I underestimated you, stupid boy. I’ll have Jefferson send you the paperwork.” She shakes her head and follows his brother out of the room.
“Looks like it’s just us, Mercedes. I do have a question for you. Why?”
She crosses her bone-thin arms over her chest and huffs. “That, Maddox, is easy. Mason promised me the fucking world. The best clothes, houses, cars. Ultimate power right at my fingertips. All I had to do was get you out of the picture somehow. It seemed so simple at first. You had given me the perfect plan when you put that speck of glass on my hand. I just had to play my cards right and fake a few orgasms. That meeting before you shipped out was all my idea. We just had to throw a few lines of bullshit out there and wait for your temper to get the best of you. I knew you wouldn’t question what they were saying. Not only are you just too fucking stupid, but when I dropped the baby bomb on you, all of your focus went into worrying about that.” She laughs and my rage grows. “You didn’t even question the baby. You just believed me because you loved me. God, you were so fucking stupid.”
“What do you fucking mean, I believed you? I saw the picture of you, Mason, and the baby.”
Her laughter takes on an insane crackle. Just the volume of it screams psycho. “Ah, yes. Perfect timing struck again when we decided to go visit a friend of your brother’s who had had their first little baby. Some careful editing and you couldn’t tell a difference. I knew you would buy it at face value. There never was a baby.” She laughs again, and that rage that was building hits a boiling point.