GREED(98)
“Get out,” I ordered. “Get the hell out of here right now. Get out.”
The man chuckled. “Not happy to see me, I see,” Dominic said, cocking his head sarcastically.
“What’s going on?” Ellie asked, confused.
Bridge’s hands went to her mouth. Jonah stood in front of her, beside me.
“Who’s this?” Emmett asked politely.
I shook my head in disbelief. I charged at him, my chair screaming in protest as I pushed it behind me. I grabbed his throat while he smiled. “Get out of here. Right. Now.”
Emmett stood and pulled me back. Not wishing to upset him further, I let him.
“But I have news,” Dominic offered, holding up a manila envelope.
“Please, get him out of here,” Bridge nearly shouted. “Get him out of here.”
Jonah turned and held her but kept an eye on us both.
“We don’t want anything you have. Keep your news to yourself. Get out!”
“But this news can’t wait.” He beamed, delighted in the horror he was causing the room.
“Can’t you see what we’re dealing with right now?” I asked him. I changed tactics. “Please, whatever it is you have, just give it to me on my own. These people have too much on their plates right now. Here,” I said, walking toward the door, “let’s step outside.”
“I guess,” he said, “but this news concerns them too. Well,” he said, a sinister laugh escaping his lips, “it really only involves them.”
“What-what? Why? My dad’s business is with me, not with them.”
“But you made it their business when you decided to live on their property.”
My breaths became labored. “What has he done?”
Without another glance my direction, he turned to Emmett. “Emmett Hunt?” he asked.
“Yes?” a baffled Emmett answered.
He handed the envelope to him and Emmett took it before I could snatch it from Dominic’s hands. “You’ve hereby been served with an eviction notice,” he told them, a blackhearted smile on his evil face.
Emmett’s and Ellie’s faces dropped.
“No!” I screamed, moving to attack Dominic.
Jonah held me back.
“Go on,” he said, laughing. “I’d love to press charges.”
“I don’t understand,” Ellie said, stunning me. “We still had sixty days to come up with the money. We would have been fine after we took the cattle to market.”
“You guys were in foreclosure?” I asked.
She nodded, ashamed. “We were. We mortgaged the ranch to pay for Cricket’s medical fees. She needed it but we overextended ourselves. We were relying on the ranch’s profits to put us in the black again.” She turned to Dominic. “The bank said we had sixty days.”
“My employer,” he said, righting himself and fixing his tie, “otherwise known as Spencer’s father, has purchased the bank to which you owe. He’s decided, as a matter of discretion, that it would be best to cut our losses now and try to sell the ranch on our own. He feels it would be most prudent to recoup the loan.” He smiled cordially, making me want to kick his teeth in. “It’s all here in your eviction papers.” He gestured toward Emmett. “Well,” he said, taking a deep breath and turning toward me. His eyes burned with poison. “Maybe next time you won’t try to screw over your father.”
Dominic left the room and we all sat silently, numb.
“Oh my God,” I said, feeling ill.
I sagged against the wall. Next to me was a trash can, and I bent to vomit into the bag, emptying the contents of my stomach and heaving in disgust with my father.
I sat back up, walked to the sink, rinsed out my mouth and slid against the wall, sitting on the hospital floor.
“I’m going to fix this,” I told the deathly hushed room. “I’m going to fix this somehow,” I kept repeating over and over.
Emmett read the start of the eviction notice. “We have ten days.”
“I’ll fix it, Emmett,” I told him.
“I don’t think you can, son,” he told me kindly, making me want to wretch again.
“I will. I will fix this.” I looked at the shocked faces around me, including Bridge’s. “I am so sorry that we tainted your lives like this.”
“Stop,” Ellie pleaded. “You aren’t responsible for your father’s actions, Spencer.”
“If I’d never shown up at your doorstep, you would have been fine,” I said, dumbfounded. “I never should have contaminated your lives.”
Bridge started crying. “I’m so sorry,” she grieved, and Jonah hugged her tighter.