her so despondent, has set something in motion inside me. I’m not giving up. I’ve got new ideas to run past Dad. I’ve been looking at the accounts, finding places we can reduce costs, stripping everything back as much as I can.
There will be another way. I just need more time to figure it out.
“What the fuck?” I stare out the windshield at the giant back loader that’s blocking my parent’s driveway as I pull up in my car. I roll down my window and stick my head out. “What’s going on?”
A guy in cargo pants and a logoed polo shirt standing next to the vehicle looks up from his clipboard. “Won’t be much longer, then we’ll be on our way.”
I jump out of my Aston Martin, leaving the door wide open as I crunch over the gravel toward him.
“I asked what’s going on?” I stare past him to where a man in a matching polo is at the rear of the loader waving one arm in the air. Another guy drives Dad’s Maclaren up onto the back of the truck, following his directions.
“Business with Mr. Rich,” clipboard man says, tucking his pen behind his ear as he holds an arm out and points into the garages. “And the others,” he calls to his colleagues. “We’re taking the lot.”
“I’m his son,” I say as a guy jumps into another car and the engine purrs to life.
“Logan Rich?” Clipboard man says.
“Yes,” I hiss, taking in the sight of Dad’s entire collection of super cars get rounded up. He loves these cars. I grimace as one of the guys drives one too hard and gravel flies up into its paintwork.
“Is that a Vulcan?”
I follow clipboard man’s eyes to my car. “Yeah, why?”
He turns back to his clipboard, flicking through the sheets of paper attached to it. “It in your name or the business’s?”
“Mine.”
He sniffs as though he couldn’t care either way whether he’s stealing another thing from us today or not. This is a job to him. But this is Dad’s livelihood, Mum and Dad’s things.
“It’s not on the list,” he says without emotion. “Think you can move it so we can get the truck out?”
I stare at him, but he just looks back at me patiently like he gets this all the time. He probably does. I imagine you need a thick skin to do his job.
“Fine,” I concede, stomping back over to my car and pulling it out of the way. I get back out and stride toward the house as the man calls “thank you” after me.
“They’re taking the cars,” I shout as I walk straight in through the open front door.
A woman I’ve never seen before walks through the hallway dressed in a suit without even glancing in my direction.
“Who the fuck are you?” I ask as I follow her down the hall. We pass another man in a suit walking past with a box in his arms. “What the fuck’s that?” I grab the box from him, my heart racing as I look inside at my mother’s jewelry boxes.
“We have the necessary paperwork. The homeowners know we’re here,” the man replies politely before taking the box out of my hands and walking toward the front door.
I stumble along the hallway.
“Dad? Mum?”
“In here, son,” Dad calls from the kitchen. I round the corner, tugging at my shirt collar as fire claws at my neck.
“Who the fuck are all these people?”
Mum looks up as I enter, her eyes flicking to another man in a suit. It’s like they’ve infiltrated every part of the house. I don’t care if I’m being rude. This isn’t their house. Why the hell are they here?
“They’re here to seize assets.” Dad runs a hand over his jaw as Mum watches the suited man go through a list on a similar clipboard to the man outside with the truck.
“I thought you had enough for a few more weeks?”
Ice scatters up my spine as the woman returns with some of Mum’s designer scarves draped over her arm. She shows them to clipboard man, and he nods in approval. Dad sees it too and his eyes pinch at the corners as he looks away.
“I have enough to pay the staff and keep the business afloat. But not enough to pay back all our loans.” He blinks, the whites of his eyes yellow. “The cars, this house… everything in it”—he swallows hard—“they’re all listed under the business. I did it years ago to fund a big investment. I’ve already sold the other properties we have. But this house…” Dad scrubs a hand over his face. “Nothing is safe… they can take anything they want.”
“That’s fucking bullshit!” I roar.
The suits ignore us, going about their business as if we aren’t even here.
“Logan,” Mum tuts. But her eyes dart side to side, panicked as the people tread through her house, touching her things, destroying her privacy.
“No, Mum. It is. We’re going to sort this out. I’m going to find a way.” I was determined before, but now I’m deadly serious. My parents will not have everything ripped away in front of their eyes in a fucking spectacle like this.
“I’ve got a six-carat diamond engagement ring here on the list,” suited man says from across the kitchen. He looks at Mum.
“Right, right. Okay.” She nods, fumbling with the ring on her finger as her hand shakes. The man in the suit watches her struggling. “Damn it, I can’t—” She pulls at the ring.
“Now, just wait a minute,” Dad yells, his face turning red. “That’s her engagement ring. You can’t take that.”
“I’m afraid we can, Mr. Rich,” the man replies. “We have everything else on the list. This is the last item.”
I take my keys from my pocket and pull the Vulcan one off the keyring. “Here.” I hold it out to the man. “Take this. It’ll more than cover the ring.”
“I can’t accept that, sir. It needs to be the asset listed here.” He taps his pen against the papers on his clipboard.
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter, shoving the key back into my pocket. “What else do you have on there? Surely there’s something else you can take?” I look over at my mother who’s still twisting the ring on her finger, trying to get it to budge.
“After this, it’s the house.”
“No, we don’t have anywhere else to go,” Mum cries.
“But, Viv, it’s your engagement ring,” Dad says.
“I don’t care. This is our home.” She blinks back tears. “Besides, it’s not the ring you proposed with.”
Dad meets my eyes. The look in his makes my stomach bottom out. It’s killing him seeing this happen to her.
But Mum’s right. The giant custom-made ring stuck on her finger isn’t the small, humble one Dad proposed with. He had no money back then.
“Here.” I walk over to Mum and take her hand. I lead her to the sink where I hold her hand in mine and rub some soap over her finger. I gently work it around the ring and then slide it from her finger as she squeezes her eyes shut. I hand the ring to the suited man, and he takes it, covered in soap, without saying a word.
“You done now?” Dad scowls at him.
The man looks over his list a final time and nods. “We are. We’ll show ourselves out.”
Dad grunts as he leaves.
I wrap an arm around Mum as she sniffs.
“They’re just things.” Her voice trembles. “It’s having people here in our house that I find upsetting. Not that the things are gone. We’re all okay, that’s the main thing.”
I meet Dad’s eyes over her head, and I can see from one look at him that he’s thinking the same as me. They might only be things. But they’re their things. Things they’ve worked hard for. Things that took them years to build.
“We can’t lose the house too,” Dad says, looking at Mum. She’s holding back tears and scrubbing her hands vigorously like she can wash away the sick feeling that’s no doubt crashed over her like it has me. Like it has Dad. “Not the house,” he mumbles as he takes over from me and places his arm around her.
“You won’t have to,” I promise, swallowing down the razorblades in my throat as Mum scrubs harder until a thin line of red globules appear around her knuckle. “I’ll do whatever it takes, Dad. I’ll do whatever is necessary.”
His eyes water as he looks at me. It’s enough to tell me he understands.
This is my family, and the Riches always find a way. No matter whether they like what that way looks like or not.
I’ll do whatever I have to.
