Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 272(@300wpm)
Grandpa’s face turned a million colors as he stroked his beard. Silent.
“One of ’em is close to your house. He’s prepared to go in, get your safe, and blow that entire mansion up. He has help of course, if need be. He’d never take on such a thing solo. Another one is trailing my woman today. Just in case some shit pops off and you’re feeling froggy. Another is with my boss. I’ll elaborate on that more in a second. And the other one is parked right outside my attorney’s house, waiting to interrupt his early Sunday dinner with a vintage horror movie with you as the main star. Yeah… I’ve got the only lawyer in Texas who ain’t afraid of you.” Grandpa shifted his weight. His hands clenched as he cracked his knuckles. “Once you threatened me with a bad time, I tucked my tail ’tween my legs and hopped on a plane to Vegas. I laid my cards down, pun intended, and told the owner of the casino what I’d done, how I’d done it. I paid back restitution, with interest. Do you know why? Because it was the right thing to do.”
Grandpa’s complexion reddened within seconds. He must’ve felt mighty defeated with that bargaining chip removed from the table.
“You can call my bluff if you want. I don’t care. Right before that though, I marched to my boss’ office and told him the whole sordid truth about me.”
“I doubt that.”
“Oh, I promise you that I did. The stealin’. The casino incident. The fucked up childhood that I rarely talked about so I could pretend to be someone I wasn’t. I told him about it not so that it could serve as an excuse for my bad behavior, but so he could understand how my unhealthy relationship with money had started young. I even told him about my situation in the Marines, and why I was dishonorably discharged. How hurtful and embarrassing that was for me… how you held it over my head to humiliate me. But it was my truth. The truth that you blackmailed me with. I was certain, like you apparently, that I would be out on my ass, reputation ruined, and in big legal trouble. Instead, he and I decided to have a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment and continue business. We worked something out.”
“…What did you work out?” The old evil man’s brain was constantly twirling and whirling… needing answers. Curiosity killed the cat.
“You see, Grandpa, those accounts you saw on my computer, and the money transfers and such? Those were ghost accounts, sir. I figured you’d make me do that right in front of you. You’ve made it clear for most of my life that you didn’t trust me as far as you could throw me. That’s why I took my mother’s advice. I had to think like you, in order to survive this ordeal… Bonnie is a smart lady. Don’t her Julia Child voice, and buttery sweet demeanor fool you. She told me: The demon becomes the demon. The mountain becomes the mountain. The tree becomes the tree. To put it simply, those accounts were fake as a three dollar bill, but made to look real.”
“I saw the money in my account, you son of a bitch!”
“They even functioned as if they were real. A common scammer trick. Secondly, that entire conversation you and I had at my workplace was being scrutinized—my boss was observing and monitoring the whole thing from the comfort of his office. He heard what you said, and what you did. All of it. He knows who the fuck you are now, and being who he is in this town, that won’t bode well for you. See, he’s an ex-Marine, too, and we tend to stick together in times like this. One thing he hates is exactly what you are: an extortionist.
“If I have children one day, and Lord willin’, I will, you’ve served as the perfect lesson in what NOT to do. You are a repugnant father. A poor excuse for a human being. A monster. Somethin’ straight out of a living nightmare. You make my daddy look like father of the gotdamn century.”
“YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT! GIVE ME MONEY, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!”
“You made a young boy kill a grown man. Not in an act of self-defense, but self-annihilation. You killed my daddy on that day… he was never the same. You wrecked his virtue, his zest for life, his willingness to dream and believe in magic. Real magic. Like unconditional love. You set it on fire.”
“You know nothing about loyalty. Of course you wouldn’t understand!”
“Loyalty ain’t what that was at all… He wanted your approval and to be loved, but he didn’t want to become someone he wasn’t, in order to get it. He couldn’t deal with life after that. You were the only parent he had left, and you destroyed his trust in mankind and in the one person on this planet who was supposed to protect and love him, come hell or highwater.”