Unease pricks at the back of my neck but I hold strong. Saying it anyway, not for me but because he had to know, had to see before it’s too late.
Before everything changes…
“That’s right, because what are we?”
Finn’s shoulders swell, widening, as he shifts his stance. “We’re Caspers.”
“And we?”
“Stick together,” he hollers.
I smirk, satisfied. “That’s right, because you’re my brother, and you have my back. Same as I have yours.” My voice cracks, faltering, and I hate it. “Right?”
The overconfidence of before dwindles somewhat as his forehead creases. That steel in his eye softening a fraction, catching the fluctuation.
I want to wince but no longer have the energy. The little I had left I’d used up just now. Making sure he knew. Understood the importance of who we are.
It doesn’t carry the same punch as before, but he answers even in his turmoil. “Right.”
My stomach caves.Please don’t forget that.
Finn’s forehead strains into a straight line as pain slices down my chest. Hyperaware of the subtle sound. Someone’s mouth parting.
It’s faint, but it’s all I need to hear to know Silas is about to speak again. To ruin everything.
“Well, wasn’t that… informative,” he says. Slicking his tongue across his teeth with a click. “Abram, your daughter needs to learn her manners and know her place. We were having a conversation.” Steering us back to before. Back to his accusations.
Back down this destructive path of war.
“Don’t do this, Silas,” Abram begs. He isn’t talking about me. “Not now.”
A frosty layer cools over his face. “Tell me what happened to my half of the company then?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s gone!” He seethes, the anger from before snapping right back into place like it’d never left. “Day after day, somewhere,somehow,my portion of the business has been dissipating. Being transferred out.”
Silas’s chest rises and falls.
“No trace, no transaction history. Zilch! All of it, gone! The Kellets own nothing at Hardin anymore as of an hour ago.”
My heart pauses, literally pauses.
What? I can’t be hearing this, right? The Kellets no longer have any weight at Hardin? That company is Silas’s life. His entire being is for that business.
Without that—
“I don’t know how you did it. You were good at covering your tracks, but I understand now. I see it. The answer has been here the whole time.”
His rage is like an inferno, a ball of fire. Warpath set, target in sight, indifferent to anyone else as he charges ahead.
Nothing matters to him other than that company, and he’s lost it.
All of it, he’d confessed.
“…Silas,” Abram asserts, but it’s a warning.
That ball is picking up speed, the heat rising as it gets closer still. Doom’s treading, but there’s nothing to do but watch as it comes. Setting in.