Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 813(@200wpm)___ 650(@250wpm)___ 542(@300wpm)
Trent returns the smirk before looking at me. “You need to ask yourself, Jacob, why these two keep loitering around you.”
“They’re fine.” I set the paper on the glass table, pen on top.
“They’re leeching off your money.” Trent steeples his hand on the document, his eyes on me. “I don’t want to see my baby brother being taken advantage of.”
I smile tiredly. “Sure.”
Phoebe nods toward the door. “Hey, Hails, want to come inside? I have some cronuts from the new bakery—”
“No,” Trent pipes in. “Hay-Hay is on a diet.”
“I am?” Hailey frowns like this is news to her, but clearly Trent has noticed she’s gained weight and assumed it’s from food.
Trent nods and waves a hand. “And this is what it looks like to protect someone you care about.”
I suck down a more vicious retort. Don’t engage. I need this done. I do the foolish thing and look at Hailey. She’s closed her book over her thumb and watches a caterpillar crawl along the banister. The urge to pick her up is a straitjacket to my soul.
It takes all my energy to look back at Trent. “Can we get this done?” I ask my brother.
“Give me a second.” He takes his sweet time reading over the single piece of paper. He sees how brutal this is for me, being in eyeshot of her, and he’s not wasting the opportunity to twist the knife harder.
I hold my breath when he picks up the pen.
I can’t blink when he signs his name on the bottom line.
“Done?” he asks me.
The question feels so weighted. So heavy. I’m in a fogged haze when I say, “Yeah…done.”
Trent steps back and lets out a deep exhale like the stress of the world just left his body. “Good luck, Jake. You’re going to need it with running all of”—he twirls his fingers—“this.” He turns to Hailey. “Come on, Hay—” He stops when his phone buzzes in his pocket.
He pulls out his cell, his brows furrowing. “Hold on…” He pushes off the patio and steps onto the manicured lawn, walking a few yards to take his call out of earshot.
Phoebe swipes the paper from the table. “I’ll go fax this.” She leaves for my office.
Hailey doesn’t meet my eyes. She doesn’t even look at her brother. She’s focused on the caterpillar.
None of us talk. It almost feels like breaking the silence will stop the momentum.
I just watch Trent. As the minutes pass, he gets more and more flustered. A hand goes to his head. He grips his hair. Flush ascends the back of his neck, rising slowly to his jaw. He starts gesticulating wildly. His expression morphing from confusion to irritation to a darker rage.
“Hailey, get behind me,” Rocky urges.
She brings her book with her and slips behind him without a single glance at me.
Seconds later, Trent grips his cell in his fist and storms over with fury-filled eyes. His anger. His wrath. It’s only directed at one man.
FORTY-SEVEN
Rocky
THE HEIR OF NOTHING (CONTINUED)
“What the fuck did you do?” Trent sneers, barreling toward me. He’s a slingshot, but I’m a wrecking ball swinging toward him. When I step forward, unafraid, he loses balance and staggers back on the lawn. He rights himself before he eats grass.
Hedges flank this area of the backyard, and beyond the neatly pruned wall of green lies the morning sun glistening against the sea. Beautiful scenery, as summer has slipped into early fall, made exceedingly gorgeous when Trent Waterford begins to lose his ever-loving mind in front of me.
I force down a smile.
It’s easy when I’m still uncertain if he’s going to redirect his anger onto Hailey. I stop at the edge of the patio, putting enough distance between Trent, his brother, and my sister to ease my nerves.
“Me?” I point a finger at my chest. “I didn’t do anything,” I say simply. “What are you even talking about?”
He pushes at the sleeves of his burgundy button-down, like he’s about to fight me. I would absolutely love for him to try. The cherry on top of the shit sundae he’s about to force-feed himself will be my knuckles in his eye socket.
He huffs, “This was you. Don’t give me that bullshit.”
I glare. “Again, don’t know what you’re talking about, Trent.” I put a hand on the stone pillar on instinct. To block him from reaching my sister. “Maybe you want to clue us all in.”
He cranes his neck to look up at his younger brother, then to the table where Hailey is currently sitting, but he’s noticeably eyeing the glass surface.
The paper he just signed to give Jake the other half of the beer company, the paper that just made Jake the sole heir of everything Koning—that paper is no longer there. It’s inside with Phoebe.
Trent pales. “Where’s the document?” He rushes toward the patio.
I drop onto the lawn and instantly block him, my forearm to his chest. “I don’t think you’re allowed in this house.”