Devil (King Brothers #2) Page 2

  Andrea gapes from me to Howard. A small flicker of pain stabs through me at the sight of her hurt expression. Andrea has been here longer than anyone but Howard—and, of course, me. I’m a real devil, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy hurting any of my employees.

  “Is that true?” Andrea asks Howard in a small voice. He remains immobile for a moment, then wilts. He nods tersely at her.

  And if I could fire him again, I would, because now he’s fucked up not one but both of my best employees. My only good employees, really. Dammit, I don’t want to deal with this on my one day off a week.

  We stand there, as if suspended in time, all of us wondering how to proceed. I sure as fuck don’t what to do. I just fired his ass; if I have to reiterate it, I’m not sure I’ll be able to muster the wherewithal.

  Finally, Howard steps out from behind the desk and says with great dignity, “I suppose I’ll be going.” And with that, he walks out without another glance.

  As soon as the door swings shut, Andrea turns on me. “I can’t believe you just fired Howard!”

  I fold my arms over my chest and prepare for the onslaught I know is coming. “He did something no employee should ever do. Someone could have gotten seriously injured as a result of him asking Lipton to devalue the farm. I’m not going to reward such behavior.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothing. This isn’t open for discussion.”

  “It’s my job to make it open to discussion.”

  She’s right, in a way. Andrea has always been full of sass. I only allow it from her, because even though I don’t have time for hassles, I know that my ego needs an occasional beat-down. The fact that she’s doing it now is significant. I know that.

  But what’s done is done; Howard needed to set an example for the rest of the employees, and he failed to do that in a pretty big fucking way. I’m not going to compromise our ethics just because he’s been around for so many years.

  Even if I know it pains Andrea. Even if I know it will hurt the rest of my employees.

  Even if it hurts me.

  “It’s over, Andrea. Finished. We’re going to need to hire someone else. Make it happen,” I say, heading for the door.

  “You can’t possibly expect to fire your most beloved employee and then put the fallout of hiring someone else on me.”

  I pause. And hell, but she’s right. The responsibility ultimately falls to me. If the new foreman fucks up, that’ll be my responsibility as well. I’m not going to put that on her. So I’ll be the one to make the final decision.

  I don’t plan to tell her that though. If I have to deal with wading through a bunch of applications and calling people, I’ll give a new meaning to my nickname.

  “Set up the interviews. Let me know.”

  Jackson finds me in my office, already swigging a bourbon.

  He raises his eyebrows. “Rather early for alcohol.”

  I shrug.

  Jackson sighs and heads for the decanter himself, pouring a glass before stretching out into the chair he was sitting in when he delivered the shitty news. “Want to talk about it?”

  “What’s there to talk about?”

  “Well, let me think. Maybe you’d like to discuss the fact that Dad’s right-hand man, the man we’ve trusted for decades, screwed you over?”

  I most certainly fucking do not want to discuss that or anything related to what just happened over the last half hour. So I shrug again.

  Jackson rolls his eyes. He’s been doing a lot of that ever since—my glass drops to my desk as a brilliant thought occurs to me. “I’ve got it. Rory can just take over.”

  And for once, I actually succeed in shocking my brother. It doesn’t happen often with Jackson. Harry, sure, but not the brother who’s only eleven months younger than me.

  “Wait, what?”

  “Your girlfriend. I assume you’re fucking her by now, right? She can run her old farm; someone’s going to need to anyway, so she might as well take over Howard’s responsibilities. It’s perfect. She’s been running her farm just like mine for years. I won’t even need to worry about training her. I should’ve thought of this at the beginning.”

  Jackson blinks, mulling over my proposal for a long time. Something almost like gratitude flickers across his face. But then he says, “While I’m sure she’ll be interested in running the Larson part of the merged farm, before this merger, two people were running two separate farms. Now you intend for one person to do it? One person can’t handle all of it. And just what the hell are you doing anyway? It’s your farm. You should do it.”

  “Convenient how it’s my farm with regard to all of the work, but your farm when it’s time for profit sharing. Anyway, Howard took care of the administrative shit and dealing with employees. That’s why he was employed. Obviously, I do all the real work of running this place.”

  “Then I don’t see why you can’t just take on his responsibilities as well.”

  “Because I don’t want to!” I roar. “I do everything else. I work fourteen-hour days during the harvest. I map out tree lines and analyze soil samples and analyze the most effective pesticides. I also make sure everybody gets paid—including your profit-sharing check every quarter, little brother.

  “But what I don’t want to do—no, what I categorically refuse to do—is both shitty paperwork and babysitting people who can’t follow simple instructions. You know perfectly well why I don’t do paperwork. I haven’t done it in the ten years I’ve been running this place, and I’m certainly not going to do it now that I’ve lost Howard.”

  Something like sympathy flashes across Jackson’s face as he leans back in satisfaction. “So you do admit it’s a loss.”

  I glower at him. “Of course it’s a loss. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  He shrugs casually, but his demeanor is anything but. “Oh, I don’t know. The rather heartless way you fired him kind of led me to believe that it wasn’t much of a hardship for you.”

  “My job isn’t to be sentimental, jackass. My job is to get the fucking peaches into fucking containers so they can be fucking sold to put money in your bank account. If you don’t like how I handle my employees, then you can start pitching in around here.”

  Jackson doesn’t have any response to that, because of course not. I let all of my family members go about their business, doing whatever the hell they want, but if they think they’re going to begin questioning how I run this farm, they better shut their fucking faces.

  Jackson slides his drink across my desk toward me, then surges out of his chair, making for the door. “Okay, dick. You’re the king of the castle. I’ll relay your offer to Rory. Good luck trying to convince Andrea that firing Howard was anything but hideously stupid.”

  And on those lovely words, he leaves, the door slamming shut behind him. I raise my glass toward the door in a mocking salute. I don’t need him to tell me the next few weeks will be awful.

  Chapter Three

  I know that firing Howard will be a blow to our operations, but even I don’t expect the carnage that occurs the following morning.

  I’m still sipping my morning coffee when I notice the tractor is still sitting in the yard. What the actual fuck? The tractor should be at today’s harvesting location. What the hell is it still doing here?

  Now that I think about it, Howard’s usually the one who gets here first. Fuck, he’s the one who moves it. He’s been doing it for so long that it didn’t even occur to me to move it before the rest of the employees arrive.

  Swearing under my breath, I drain the rest of my coffee and leave the cup in the sink, heading for the tractor. We’re harvesting in the back ten acres of the property, so it takes a good half hour to drive the tractor and trailer that hold the harvested peaches all the way to the necessary place. Then I have to jog all three miles back to the house.

  By the time I get there, I’m already exhausted and sweaty. Did Howard really do this every morning? There’s no way in hell I’m hoofing it a couple mile
s back to the house every morning when I’ve already completed my lifting workout. With hauling peaches around for the next twelve hours, I don’t exactly need additional cardio.

  The rest of the staff has already arrived when I return to the house. Unfortunately, instead of doing their jobs, which I’m paying them to do, they’re all standing around in a group, talking.

  “Why are you just standing there? We have work to do,” I snap, heading for the house so I can change out of my disgusting clothes.

  One of my workers, the one who has to question every single order, folds his arms over his chest and says, “What happened to Howard?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Didn’t seem like nothing from what I heard,” he says, unwilling to let the matter drop.

  “I don’t pay you to gossip about employees; I pay you to tear peaches from trees.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothing. I expect all of you to head over so you can get to work.”

  “We want to know why he got fired!” someone else shouts.

  “Yeah!”

  Apparently, I’m going to have to tell them. I intend to keep the worst details quiet; I have no desire to ruin a man’s reputation. Fire Howard, sure, but I don’t need to go around gossiping about how he did something terrible. And if I tell any of these guys, the whole story will be all over Ovid in a matter of hours.

  “He did something that he shouldn’t have done,” I finally say.

  “So you fired him because he made a mistake?”

  “Harsh, man.”

  “Yeah, overkill, if you ask me.”

  “I don’t care if you think I murdered the man. He’s gone. It’s permanent. Move on, and get to work,” I growl, fixing the lot of them with a fierce enough glare that they finally let the subject die.

  I turn to make for my house. I need to change and then do administrative bullshit, which I’m absolutely fucking dreading. I’ve just made it to the top of my steps when I realize the yard has gone still.

  Entirely too still for a bunch of people who should be going about their work.

  I whirl around. “What are you waiting for, a fucking engraved invitation?”

  I know I’m being a huge dick right now, but I already told them to get to work. I’m not the kind of boss who feels the need to micromanage every little action of his employees. I give orders and expect them to be followed. I don’t care how they’re carried out, as long as they’re finished.

  One of the guys shrugs a little and holds his palms out in a hopeless expression. “Howard always told us where to go in the mornings.”

  My eyes close for a moment at the sudden onset of a raging migraine. “How long have you been here, Morris?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know, a couple years. Why?”

  “And during those couple of years, have we ever not done a counterclockwise spiral out from the house?”

  “I mean, I guess we’ve always done that.”

  “So what do you think the likelihood is that we would deviate from that pattern?”

  “Uh … not likely?”

  “Correct. Therefore, you probably know the next section that we’re doing today based on what we did yesterday, right?”

  Understanding finally, finally dawns. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Wonderful. Now get to it.” I turn and stride into my house, the door slamming shut behind me. And while I had to spell it out for them, at least now I’ve taught them where to go every morning. There’s one task I don’t have to worry about Howard doing anymore.

  This will be fine. It’s just going to take a little time to get used to the transition.

  I spend an hour going over the summary of our operations for the last three months that Andrea finished yesterday. She needs to start preparing the new statements, but before she does that, I need to sign off on the current ones.

  Make no mistake; I’m well aware that Andrea is the one who told the rest of the employees about Howard. Jackson didn’t do it—even he’s not that stupid—and it’s not like Howard’s going to go around bragging that he got shit-canned. That leaves Andrea. So now, in addition to going over these financial statements, which I always absolutely dread doing, I’m also going to have to bitch her out for spreading rumors.

  Rumors that are obviously true, but that’s beside the point.

  By the time she finally arrives, I’m seething, exhausted by numbers I can’t keep straight in my head, angry that even though I’ve fired him, Howard is still causing trouble, and frustrated by the fact that my brothers have left me to deal with all of this without so much as the slightest bit of help.

  “Hey, Axel. How are things today?”

  “Absolutely fucking wonderful. Thanks for your concern,” I say without looking up as she steps into my office.

  There’s a long pause. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that she’s probably trying to figure out what pissed me off, but she probably already knows. I shouldn’t have snapped at her, but I don’t have time to get all emotional about making someone feel bad.

  “I see you’re feeling absolutely delightful today.”

  “That generally happens when one of your employees blabs about Howard getting fired.”

  Andrea plops down into one of the chairs across from my desk and rolls her eyes, the movement magnified by her thick glasses. “Oh yes. I just love it when I find you in one of these stellar moods.”

  I glare at her. “I’m in a stellar mood, as you put it, because I just had to fend off a bunch of questions from the men.”

  “Ax, come on, they’re going to ask questions.”

  “Only because you told them there was something to ask about in the first place!”

  She shrugs. “Keep telling yourself it was my fault, but you and I both know that even if I hadn’t told them, they would have arrived this morning and asked where he was.”

  She’s not wrong.

  “Let’s just agree to disagree on this one.” I can’t ever give Andrea a point in her favor; she craves making me see things her way. Sometimes she even manages to convince me.

  Andrea doesn’t push the subject, because she’s not an idiot. After working for me for years, she’s well aware of the fact that when I reach my limit, it’s a hard limit.

  “Has the sale been finalized?

  “Not finalized, but we finally agreed on a price of two million.”

  Her brows raise in surprise. “Didn’t Jackson say that price is too high?”

  I shake my head. “He was never right about that. I’ve known the size of that farm since I was a child. I know exactly how much their output is each year because our farms are so similar. Turns out, though, there’s a reason Jackson and I couldn’t agree on the number. He was given fake figures.”

  “What?”

  I sigh, because the unfortunate reality is that while I didn’t want to tell the men precisely what Howard did, I have to tell Andrea. She’s responsible for the farm’s finances and needs to be aware of what’s happening with the sale.

  “You know Howard conspired with Mike Lipton. But, well, Howard told him to lower the numbers in the financial packet they sent over to make it seem like the farm is less profitable than it really is. Then he had Mike wreck their tractor so the equipment wouldn’t be as valuable either.”

  Andrea jerks back as if I hit her. I look away, her devastated expression making me uncomfortable. I don’t do emotional shit. I especially don’t like hanging around when people are in the midst of emotional shit.

  “He didn’t … Howard wouldn’t … there’s no way.” Andrea shakes her head back and forth fervently, her eyes begging me to retract my statement.

  I slump forward on my desk, rubbing a hand over my face as I mutter, “I didn’t want to believe it either, but it’s true. It’s really fucking true.”

  “I’m so very sorry, Axel.” I glance up to find Andrea staring at me, eyes gleaming in sorrow. And there’s just something so horribly heartbroken about her expression that c
uts me deeper than it should.

  “Let’s just go over these numbers.” I push one of the statements toward her, pointing to the total at the bottom. “This number is wrong. We harvested the inner rows last quarter. But here it says that we made $217,000 over the quarter, and that doesn’t match the usual amount of peaches I know that area of the farm produces. The number is too high.”

  “The number’s actually $127,000, Axel,” says Andrea, her voice firm but kind.

  I’ve done it again.

  I don’t do math. Not “I hate math.” Not “calc sucks and I’m never going to use it.” I can’t do math. The numbers get all jumbled up in my head and it takes me fucking ages to do simple calculations. You could hold a gun to my head and I still couldn’t solve an equation without fucking up something. Hell, I probably couldn’t even play Russian roulette—I’d probably load up every chamber except one, instead of the other way around.

  It’s always been this way, and it’ll always be this way. I spent many years of my childhood angry and frustrated, belittled and bullied before I got larger and nastier. The bullying stopped, but my devilish personality didn’t.

  There’s a reason why I didn’t become a realtor like Jackson or a doctor like Griffin. Even my other brothers, miscreants though they are, can understand their fucking tax returns. That’s never going to be me. I’ve come to accept it—but that doesn’t mean I like it. And it certainly doesn’t make me the cheeriest guy around.

  Andrea knows I get numbers mixed up, but she’s never once made fun of me for it—and there’ve been plenty of times when she’s ridiculed me for other shit. She’s never made me feel stupid, nor has she ever questioned my authority at this farm because I can’t do something third graders can. She’s never jerked me around, faked numbers just to mess with me, or failed to correct me when I get something wrong.

  Andrea is worth her weight in gold. More, actually. This place would be a fucking dumpster fire without her. That’s why she gets to bitch me out whenever I’m being an asshole. No one else, not even my brothers, has earned that right.