the paperwork and then tosses it onto my British Lit textbook. “This is my offer. I suggest you look through it and get back to me.”
“I don’t need to look at it. My answer is no.”
A tick in Lance’s jaw starts. Stone peeks at him, then returns his gaze to me, his stare never wavering.
Lance, though, gets even more agitated. His hands turn to fists. Before I can open my mouth to tell him to get fucked again, the almost same gray-blue eyes his son has sear into me. No, actually, his aren’t the same at all. They’re darker. Like a living nightmare. “You think I can’t make your life miserable if you don’t do as I say?” He grins, composing himself. “You think your scholarship is safe at Saint Clary’s?” The mirth in his eyes dances with unrestrained happiness while my life feels like it’s on a high wire. “Oh no, Miss Wilder, it’s not. You’re looking at one of the new donors to the school. I reckon they’ll do anything to keep their new funding.” He nods toward the files on the coffee table. “You can be a winner. Or you can be a loser.”
I let out a breath. I feel as if I’ve been knocked off my feet even though I’m still standing with the coffee table between me and them. It’s like we’ve drawn sides in a war. I’m the opposition. I don’t want to be on their side. I can’t. It goes against everything I believe.
“If you don’t do this, I’ll ruin your whole life, Dakota Wilder. Get back to me by tomorrow.” He strides from the room, my prehistoric laptop dangling from his fingers. The guys follow him, but Lance tells Wyatt to hang back, winking at me. “We have to make sure our precious commodity is safe before she makes the right decision.”
Wyatt closes the door behind his friends, admiring the splinters he put in the wood when he tried kicking it down. I can’t hold myself up anymore, so I slide to the couch at my back. I’ve heard of a lot of shit that goes on with treasure hunting. Most of it is old stories. Betrayal. Greed. I know some of it from first-hand experience, but this takes the cake. The Jacobs are threatening me.
Fuck me. The only thing I have left is college and now they want to take that away?
“You look like someone kicked your puppy.”
“Take this in the worst way you can possibly imagine,” I say. “Fuck. Off.”
I grab the manila folder and retreat to my bedroom. Slamming and locking the door behind me, I throw the contents of the folder on my bed. There’s no use trying to get him to leave. It doesn’t matter. He’ll be as miserable as me here anyway. I run my hands over my curls. I’d taken my hair out of the hair tie after the guys left the first time to try to alleviate the pounding drums in my head, but they’re back with a crescendo.
I’m almost scared to look at the contract. Even a peek is like backstabbing my family.
I stare up at the ceiling, closing my eyes tightly. “Seriously?” I say into thin air as hopelessness covers me like a shroud. Like it’s not enough that my father went missing a couple of months ago, now some guy with a god complex thinks he can buy my family’s legacy?
When two hundred million is on the line, people think with their pockets. My dad said that all the time. He wasn’t immune to it either. He had associates who funded some of our trips up the mountain. He spent so much time researching that he didn’t always have a steady paycheck, yet somehow, we always got by even if it was by a sliver. I can do the same. Pick up a job somewhere… Right. In an area that has one of the worst unemployment rates around?
I pick my way through the strewn clothes all over the floor and lie down on the newly unmade bed, propping my head up with my palm and moving the folder closer. Looking at this is siding with the devil. It might take care of my immediate problems, but it’s like signing my soul away and putting it into a monster’s hands.
6
I dreamt of wading through inky black oil that grew thicker and thicker until it was almost sludge. Ahead of me, a full moon rose in the distance over a beautiful sandy beach.