Page 9 of Fierce-Matt

“No,” her mother said. “Your father wanted to leverage the house years ago when we took out a line of credit and I refused. Without my signature, he wasn’t able to.”

“Thank God,” she said, moving back.

“After we talk to EJ, we can figure out a plan going forward.”

“The plan is to sell,” she said. “EJ isn’t here and he will not care. He never has and never will. This is about you and Dad. More you than Dad, as much as it pains me to say it.”

“Your father and brother have never gotten along,” her mother said.

“I don’t want to talk about that now. You tell me what you need me to do to help you.”

“I’ll want you to list it once we figure out the value. Thankfully we own the building. If someone wants to buy the business, that would be better; otherwise we’ll have to close the doors in a few months anyway.”

Her father had started Emerson Supplies, a plumbing and electrical supply company, before she was born.

With commercial hardware stores and online shopping, the business had been dwindling. He should have sold a long time ago and then it wouldn’t have been another problem her mother would have to solve.

“How many people are still working there?”

“Only six. Four are full time,” her mother said. “I’ve got a CPA firm handling all the accounting and figuring out the damage.”

“I can’t believe Shelly did that.”

Shelly Cooper had been the accountant for her father since the day he opened the doors.

Shelly had been embezzling money under her father’s nose for years. It frustrated Anya that her father hadn’t realized it, but he had complete trust in the woman who’d worked by his side from the beginning.

They’d been a team in her father’s eyes.

Some team that was!

“She claims it started eight years ago when her husband died. Bills were mounting.”

“I don’t care about her reason,” she said. “She stole from you and Dad. She’s part of the reason the business was failing and now it’s all but trash.”

“Come here,” her mother said. “We both need another hug. Your father made a lot of mistakes and one of them was not selling years ago. He held on because he worried about Shelly and if she could find another job or not.”

Anya snorted. “Are you kidding me? Look how she stabbed him in the back.”

“Your father wasn’t ready to let it go. But we knew he would when he turned sixty-five.”

“That was three years ago. Not that he knows his age.” Maybe on a good day he might.

“No,” her mother said, shaking her head. The phone rang. “And that is EJ.”

“Might as well get this over with,” she said.

Her mother answered the phone and put it on speaker. “Hi, Mom,” EJ said. “Is Anya there?”

“I’m here,” she said.

“Then I don’t understand why I need to be part of this call,” EJ said. Exasperation and annoyance were pouring through the speaker.

Anya clenched her jaw and all but spit the words out. “Because it’s about Dad, and Mom needs everyone’s support.”

“Dad doesn’t care what I think or say,” EJ snarled. “He never did.”

She puffed her cheeks out and counted silently to five in her head. “Put your opinions aside,” she said. “Please.”