I stood at the sawmill gate, the sound of the nearby river a dull roar, the padlocking order still clutched in my hand. Finch and his security guards had left, but their threat lingered in the air like sawdust.
A black SUV pulled up, its tinted windows gleaming in the afternoon sun. Julian Croft emerged, immaculately dressed in a tailored suit, his usual confident stride softened by a slight impatience.
He didn’t bother with pleasantries.
“Arthur,” he began, pulling out a thick wad of cash from his inner jacket pocket. “Look, I’m a reasonable man.”
He fanned the bills, a stack of crisp hundreds. “Five thousand dollars. Cash.”
My gaze remained fixed on his face.
“For what?” I asked.
“For you to quietly pack up and vacate the property by nightfall,” Croft said, his tone persuasive. “No fuss, no trouble. Just walk away, and this is all yours.”
He held the money out, expecting me to take it. The amount was more than I earned in several months of hard work.
“That’s a lot of money, Julian,” I said, my voice quiet.
“It is,” he agreed, stepping closer. “Consider it a severance. A final, generous offer to someone who, let’s be honest, probably lost their original paperwork decades ago.”
He really thought I was just some old caretaker who had misplaced my employment contract. The misunderstanding was almost comical, if it weren’t so deeply insulting.
“I won’t be taking your money, Julian,” I replied, folding the padlocking order and tucking it into my pocket.
Croft’s brow furrowed. The smile slipped from his face.
“Don’t be foolish, Arthur,” he warned, his voice hardening. “Modern corporate law always crushes small-town handshakes. I own this land. Every square inch. My lawyers are already preparing the injunctions.”
He tapped the thick stack of bills against his palm, a dismissive gesture. “Do you truly believe some dusty old receipts can stand against a multi-million dollar corporation?”
“Maybe not receipts,” I conceded, looking past him to the ancient stone foundation of the millhouse. “But stone foundations don’t care about corporate names, Julian.”
My gaze met his. “They just care about what’s built on them.”
His face went stiff. He probably thought it was a folksy old man’s saying, not a direct challenge to his flimsy legal claims.
“You’ll regret this,” Croft snarled, shoving the money back into his pocket. “When the sheriff shows up, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He spun on his heel, got back into his SUV, and sped away, leaving me alone at the gate. I pulled out Finch’s padlocking order again. Under the faint sunlight, the expired notary seal seemed to mock Croft’s bravado.
December 31, 2021. It was mid-October 2023. The license had been expired for almost two years.
This wasn’t just a mistake. It was a pattern.
+ There are no comments
Add yours