“Good,” my father said with a nod.
“What do you mean he’ll lose everything?” I asked, feeling like I was missing something.
“Well, your father and Stark are planning to ruin his reputation—”
“No, you said you wouldn’t,” I said to my father.
“He doesn’t have to. Stark will do it for him. You knew that, didn’t you, Frank?” Sinclair sneered.
My father looked down, and I was horrified. “Dad?”
“Then, there’s the trust money that he has to pay back,” Sinclair added.
“What?” I said. “No. That’s not right.”
“It is right. If you’re not married a year, he has to pay back the money he got.”
I looked at my father, and his surprised eyes suggested he didn’t know. But now that he did, surely, he’d at the very least finish out the deal we’d made.
“He deserves it for what he did,” my father said.
I stood, stunned, not quite sure what to say or do as Sinclair and my father argued.
“He helped you when you were going to lose everything, and what do you do? You try to ruin him. You’re an asshole, Frank!”
“You won’t be mayor talking to me like that,” my father snapped.
Sinclair turned on him. “You think you can keep me from being mayor? If you think this town won’t know that you pimped out your daughter and screwed your best friend, you can think again.”
My father’s jaw tightened. “That’s not what—”
“She admits to sleeping with him. You agreed to the marriage. How else will this town see it?”
“He—”
Sinclair held up a hand. “You ruin him, I ruin you, Frank. If Mo has to sell the farm, I’ll make sure it goes to Stark for his waste treatment plant. It will be my peace offering to him since he didn’t get his prison or your land.” She made a face like she was thinking. “He didn’t get your land because Mo risked everything for his friend. Too bad he didn’t know what a snake his friend was.”
“He’s the one who betrayed me.”
Sinclair looked up at me. “Is that true?”
I shook my head. “No. He was torn about hurting you, Dad. But I didn’t care. I was the one who betrayed you.”
“You’re too young to understand these things,” he said. “Mo knows better.”
“Mo loves her,” Sinclair said.
My heart did a little flip-flop in my chest. Was that true? Did he really love me? Had he told her that?
She looked up at me. “What’s wrong with you that you’re letting your father do this? Unless you’re in on it, too.”
“No. No, I love Mo.”
She pursed her lips. “You have a fucked-up way of showing it. And I’ll tell you what, Mo won’t do anything to you over this because he’s a good man. Me, I’m petty. So, I promise you, if I become mayor, not only will I fire you, but I’ll make sure you don’t work in public administration in Salvation…maybe even all of Nebraska.” She looked from me to my father. “And you, Frank, you’re going to meet the terms of whatever deal you set up—”
“No.” My father’s hands fisted at his sides.