Marshall interrupted me, doing what Cut had told him and powering through my retaliation. “Over the years, the Debt Inheritance has had to…how shall I say? Adapt.”
I couldn’t argue. I couldn’t win.
All I could do was sit and silently seethe.
“All contracts are amended at some point or another, and this is no different.” Marshall uncapped his fountain pen. “I hope that’s self-explanatory, so I can skip to the next topic.”
“No, it isn’t self-explanatory.” I snarled, “What you’re saying is all this talk of being set in stone and law-abiding is actually not—it’s revised to suit your benefits with no input from my family?”
My stomach roiled at the unfairness. How could they change the rules and tote it over our heads like gospel? How could they notarise something without both parties agreeing?
Who were these corrupt, money-grubbing lawyers?
Cut tutted under his breath. “Don’t force me to gag you, Ms. Weaver.” His eyes blackened as if I’d offended his moral code.
What moral code?
He was scum.
“Everything we do is within the parameters set by our current law. We’ve made sure nothing is carried out until it’s first written, signed, and witnessed.”
“Even rape and murder?”
Bonnie leaned forward. “Watch your tongue.”
Cut clasped his fingers. “I’ll allow that one last question. Perhaps, if you finally understand that all of this is meticulously recorded, then you might stop thinking you’ve been indisposed and suffering an injustice.”
Sitting taller in his chair, he buffed his fingernails on his cuff. “Things outside the realm of understanding can become approved if it’s drafted and agreed to. What do you think war is, Nila? It’s a contract between two countries that men in their comfy offices sign. With one signature, they deliver countless resources and sign the death warrant of so many lives. That’s murder. And it’s all done with no comeuppance because they had a contract stating they had the full use of enlisted men’s lives all for greed, money, and power.”
I hated that he made sense; hated that I agreed with my archenemy. The world had always been twisted in that respect. Sending men off to war, only to die the moment they landed on enemy soil…then to send yet more men to the exact same battlefield, knowing the outcome would be death.
That was homicide on a negligent global scale, and those in power never paid for their crimes.
I sat silent.
Cut smiled, knowing he’d gotten through to me in some way. “When I say everything was done by the law, I do mean everything.” He nodded at the stacks of paper. “In there, you’ll find every deviation from the Debt Inheritance along with a Hawk signature and a Weaver’s.”
My heart skipped painfully. “You’re saying my family signed this?” I snorted. “I don’t believe that. Did you force them under duress?”
Marshall huffed. “At no point would my firm accept such a thing. We have iron-clad records that protect our client’s reputation. We have proof to show there was no hardship signing the amendments.”
Like I believed him. He let murderers get away with it for six hundred years.
Plucking a piece of paper from the fourth pile, he handed it to me. “See for yourself.”
Part of me wanted to crumple it up and throw it in his face, but I restrained.
Calmly, I accepted the page and scanned it.
The scraps Cut had given me in return for serving them lunch had been taken from this document. The Debt Inheritance was there in its entirety.
My eyes highlighted certain lines, remembering the ridiculous contract.
For actions committed by Percy Weaver, he stands judged and wanting.
Even I agreed with that after he’d sent an innocent girl to her death by ducking stool and a boy to be raped for twelve hours.
Bennett Hawk requires a public apology, monetary gain, and most of all, bodily retribution.
How much money did Weaver pay? Was it enough for the Hawks to somehow leave England, find their diamonds, and became untouchable through wealth?
In accordance with the law, both parties have agreed that the paperwork is binding, unbreakable, and incontestable from now and forever.
That part I didn’t believe, but it wasn’t arguable. In the minds and pockets of the Hawks, Weavers had to pay continuously toward the bottomless debt.
But Jethro would’ve ended it.
We could’ve been the last generation to ever have to deal with this brutal nonsense.
Percy Weaver hereby solemnly swears to present his firstborn girl-child, Sonya Weaver, to the son of Bennett Hawk, known as William Hawk. This will nullify all unrest and unpleasantries until such a time as a new generation comes to pass.
So the boy who’d been raped for Weaver’s gambling debts was the one who’d carried out the first Debt Inheritance? Had he taken great joy in hurting the daughter of his enemy, or had he hated it as much as Jethro?
This debt will not only bind the current occupancies of the year of our Lord 1472 but every year thereafter.
How something had lasted for so long was a testament to feuds and grudges of wealthy madmen.
Once I’d reached the bottom, Marshall handed me another page. “This was the last amendment to the contract before today’s meeting.”
Doing a switch, I scanned the new document. The page was white and modern—only a few years old rather than decades.
In the case of the last surviving line of Alfred ‘Eagle’ Hawk and Melanie Warren, the succession of the Debt Inheritance will go to Bryan ‘Vulture’ Hawk over his recently deceased brother, Peter ‘Osprey’ Hawk.
I frowned, absorbing the legal jargon.
What did it mean?
I looked at the very bottom, sucking in a breath as I double-checked the feminine sweep.
No.
My mother’s signature.
“What—”
I read it again. No matter how much I wished it wasn’t true, it was. My mother’s signature inked the paper, prim and proper, just as I remembered her writing style to be.
Right beside hers was Cut’s masculine scrawl.
My brain scrambled; I glared at Cut. “You weren’t firstborn.”
Cut smiled slyly. “Never said I was.”
Bonnie’s red lips spread into a sneer. “Sad day for all involved.” She tapped her fingers on the table. “I’d groomed my firstborn to be a worthy heir. Peter would’ve been a good leader but circumstances I didn’t foresee came to light.” Her gaze narrowed at Cut, full of reproof and history.
Cut shrugged. “A little mishap. That’s all.”
Bonnie coughed. “Call it what you want. I still haven’t forgiven you.”
Cut only laughed.
What on earth happened in that generation? What about the ages of the men? How was Cut allowed to claim my mother? Was that why she’d had children? Hearing that the firstborn Hawk had died, had she believed she was unbound to the debts?
If that was the case, how did she know what the future entailed when I hadn’t been told until Jethro appeared in Milan? Tex kept it from me. Emma might’ve been forewarned.
So many questions. So many scenarios.
When did Peter Hawk die?
If he died when my mother was young, maybe that was why she fell so hard for my father. Drunk on the thought of freedom, she’d started a family far younger than she might’ve done thinking we were all…safe.
What a horrible, terrible joke.
Questions danced on my tongue. I chose the most random but most poignant. “What happens when you run out of Weavers to torture? I won’t have children. Vaughn won’t. What then?”
Daniel laughed. “Remember that sister I joked about?”
Oh, my God. It’s true?
Cut interrupted. “You have no other siblings, Nila. I would’ve told you if you did. Merely a farce.”
Daniel scowled. “Thanks for fucking ruining my fun. Had her believing that for months.”
I hadn’t believed it…but I’d wondered.
“So, it was all nonsense?”
Cut shook his head. “Not quite. You have a cousin. A few times removed but still bearing the Weaver name. We would look at all avenues if the future required it.”
Poor cousin.
I overflowed with rage. “Do you ever listen to yourself? You’re talking about people, for God’s sake.”
If Cut went after my unknown cousin, that didn’t explain the previous generations that’d had no children or were killed off before carrying on the bloodline. How did it continue for so long when having a child was never a guarantee?
I knew how. They’d amended it. Tweaked the so-called unbreakable contract to fit with the Hawks’ demented ideals.
Marshall plucked the paper from my hands. “I believe we’re getting off topic, Ms. Weaver.” Waving the parchment, he said, “Let’s focus on today’s subjects. Happy now you’ve seen the evidence with your own eyes?”
“Happy isn’t a word I know anymore.” I bared my teeth. “She wouldn’t have signed that without being threatened. I don’t care what you say.”
That fleeting afternoon when my mother returned home, adorned with the diamond collar and hugging me so tightly, came to mind. She’d been terrified but resigned. Broken but strong. I hadn’t understood back then, but now I did.