by Layne, Ivy
I wasn't alone in hating my father. Prentiss Sawyer was one of the most hated men in our patch of North Carolina. Hell, he was probably one of the most hated men in the country. Stalling, I said, “How? What happened?”
“Sterling found him in his office at Heartstone Manor. He was shot. He’d been dead a while.”
Sterling. My little sister. Half-sister. Most of my siblings were halves. Prentiss collected wives, but he was shit at keeping them. I resisted the urge to ask if Sterling was okay. Sterling wasn’t my problem. None of them were.
“Where?”
“His office,” Hope repeated more slowly, as if I were hard of hearing.
“No, where on his body was he shot?”
“His forehead.”
Execution style. A crime of passion I could see. An angry husband or a betrayed lover, sure. Not an assassination. And Ford was in jail for killing him? No way.
I had a lot of reasons to hate my brother, but there was no way he could have killed our father with a single shot to the forehead. Ford didn’t have it in him. He knew his way around a gun, all the Sawyer kids did, but that kind of cold-blooded murder? No.
How much had changed since I’d left?
I pushed Ford from my mind. Not your problem, I reminded myself. “The bastard changed his will after I left. Again.”
My father was famous for changing his will. He used that thing like a weapon, setting my siblings and me against one another in a constant play for dominance.
It wasn't enough that the Sawyers practically owned the town of Sawyers Bend, owned hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate and industry in North Carolina and the surrounding states.
Prentiss Sawyer wasn't happy unless the rest of us were dancing to his tune like puppets on strings. That will had been changed so many times the fees he paid to the family estate attorney had bought the man a second home.
I'd walked away from Sawyers Bend, turned my back on my family after they’d betrayed me in the worst way. My father’s will was not my problem.
“He kicked me out fourteen years ago,” I reminded her. “I have my own life now. Solve your own problems. “
A ghost of emotion flitted across Hope's face. Fear? Worry? Desperation? It was gone so fast I couldn’t tell.
She leaned forward a scant inch. “Griffen, you need to understand—everything is frozen. Everything. Personal funds. Business funds. Everything. People won’t get paid. Businesses will go under. The town will go under. You don’t have to stay. Please, just come home so Harvey can read the will. As soon as it’s done you can leave, and you never have to see any of us again.”
Fucking hell. My goddamned father. He always knew how to twist the knife.
He wanted me back in Sawyers Bend for some godforsaken reason, and he was the expert at getting his way, even from beyond the grave.
He knew I wouldn't come back if he asked. I didn't need the Sawyer fortune. I'd been raised to take the helm, groomed to follow in my father's footsteps, but I'd walked away. I’d made my own money. I didn’t need my father’s fortune, and I didn’t owe those people a fucking thing.
My family was poison, but the town of Sawyers Bend was a different story.
Sawyers Bend was filled with people just trying to live their lives. Good people. People dependent on the various Sawyer enterprises for their livelihood. Without the free flow of Sawyer cash, Sawyers Bend would grind to a halt, and it was the people of the town who would suffer first.
I wanted nothing to do with my family, but I wouldn't destroy the town.
“When is the reading of the will?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. Harvey’s office.”
“I'll be there. And then I’m leaving.”
I watched Hope walk out of my office, her back straight, posture perfect, the girl I'd known nowhere in sight.
Noon. I’d be back on the road to Atlanta by five, finally done with Sawyers Bend.
Nothing on this earth could convince me to stay a second longer.
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Don't miss
the series that started it all.
The Alpha Billionaire Club Trilogy.
Also By Ivy Layne
The Untangled Series
Unraveled
Undone
Uncovered
Scandals of the Bad Boy Billionaires
The Billionaire’s Secret Heart (Novella)
The Billionaire’s Secret Love (Novella)
The Billionaire’s Pet
The Billionaire’s Promise
The Rebel Billionaire
The Billionaire’s Secret Kiss (Novella)
The Billionaire’s Angel
Engaging the Billionaire
Compromising the Billionaire
The Counterfeit Billionaire
Series Extras: ivylayne.com/extras
The Alpha Billionaire Club
The Wedding Rescue
The Courtship Maneuver
The Temptation Trap
About Ivy Layne
Ivy Layne has had her nose stuck in a book since she first learned to decipher the English language. Sometime in her early teens, she stumbled across her first Romance, and the die was cast. Though she pretended to pay attention to her creative writing professors, she dreamed of writing steamy romance instead of literary fiction. These days, she’s neck deep in alpha heroes and the smart, sexy women who love them.
Married to her very own alpha hero (who rubs her back after a long day of typing, but also leaves his socks on the floor). Ivy lives in the mountains of North Carolina where she and her other half are having a blast raising two energetic little boys. Aside from her family, Ivy’s greatest loves are coffee and chocolate, preferably together.
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