Dark Intentions - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,53

And if you did, you already proved it many years ago. You and Lincoln are solid and now you're having a child.”

She shakes her head, still frustrated and annoyed.

"You're an established physician. You make your own money. I don't know what there is to prove,” I continue. “I don't know why the trustees wouldn't agree to giving you the trust fund."

Marguerite inhales and exhales very slowly. "I don't either, except Lincoln is pretty sure that we are never going to get it."

"And if you don’t?" I ask.

She glares at me and it feels like bullets hitting my body.

"I didn't mean it like that. I just meant… what if you don't get the six-million dollars, what then? Lincoln makes good money. You do as well. You have a career. You have the house in the Hamptons.”

“Which your mom pays for,” she adds. "That's the thing. Your mom is always trying to pull all these strings. It's like, we're her puppets. He makes his own money, so do I, but we couldn’t afford that house in the Hamptons for the summer weekends. But why shouldn’t we use it?”

It’s more of a rhetorical question but she answers it before I can.

“Should we not use it just out of pride when your mom bought it in our names? She’s paying the mortgage. Still, every time I'm there, I feel like I owe her something.”

Marguerite sighs and I wish there were something I could say besides ‘I’m sorry.’

"She's using money to control us and I fall for it every time,” she says. “I'm trying to make peace so that my husband is happy, but it just makes me more angry.”

Suddenly, she gets overwhelmed. Her nose turns red and a few tears roll down her cheeks.

I lean over and pull her close to me and wrap my arms around her shoulders as she sobs.

"I'm so sorry.” Marguerite tries to push me away, but I just hold her close. "I'm not trying to make any trouble. I'm just pregnant."

"No," I say, pulling her away and looking straight into her eyes. "You have very legitimate concerns and Mom is being awful. She has always used money to manipulate the people around her.”

She nods, continuing to sob.

"She loves us on some level, but that doesn't stop her from trying to control us,” I say. “She thinks that if she didn't have money, and she didn't have houses, and she didn't have connections, then we wouldn't be there. But what she's really doing is just pushing us away."

“Is it ever going to change?” Marguerite nods.

“One of these days I'm going to reach my breaking point and it's going to be enough.”

The following morning, I decide to stop wasting time and call Vasko. He answers on the second ring and I dive right in. I tell him about his financials and the fact that I do not agree with this investment.

He listens carefully and waits. He doesn't try to convince me of anything.

I tell him that the companies look like they are shell companies used to only funnel money from one place to another, and ones that produce nothing.

“So, why are you calling me?" Vasko asks after a long pause. "If everything about this company is so bad and you have no interest in investing, why are we having this conversation?"

What I don't tell him is that I think that Cedar has made some sort of back door deal with him and he thought that he could get it past me, but he can't.

"I don't have a choice. My boss said that we're going to invest, so I'm here to tell you that you're going to get a $5 million infusion of our investors’ money."

"Oh, good. Good, good, good," Vasko says quickly.

I can hear him tapping his pen on the table, almost rushing me off the phone.

The fact that he's not more excited about the news just confirms my suspicions.

"What I'm going to tell you now is that you are going to spend every last cent of this money in the legal and appropriate way. Cedar may not take his job very seriously, but I do. The investors depend on my recommendation and I'm going to make sure that the decisions that you make with this money aren't wrong.”

32

Jacqueline

My mom’s surgery doesn't go as planned, there are complications, and a lot of blood loss.

Dr. Ellis tells me the news in an overly lit hallway, tilting her head to one side.

"So what's going to happen now? What does this mean?” I ask,