GREENE | CS55

29 - It's Sold!

Anger trembled down to the nerves in Pierce Greene's fingertips.

The fury shook her leg, crossed where her ankle met her knee in the foldable plastic chair, wagging her foot as though it were a finger shaking in disdain. She remained this way for the rest of the meeting, the heat running hotter than a blazing fire, stoking with every syllable released from Jim's mouth at the front of the room. Pierce couldn't discern the words they were forming anymore. Didn't have the attention. Anything further Jim had to elaborate on, she didn't care to know. Nothing mattered past the clear main objective of Jim's appearance in Zandvoort.

The hum of her breath vibrated through her eardrums, Jim Greene's words bursting on repeat like a flare. Selling the team.

Pierce was seething. Behind her eyes, she saw nothing but burning shades of twisted red.

This was it. Pierce knew she was currently witnessing the beginning of her ending.

Pierce Greene at the beginning of the year might not have batted an eye at the very words. But the Pierce Greene sitting in this very room? She felt her stomach lurch harder than it did going around a high g-force corner. The very thought made her shut her eyes in agony, a hand flying to the base of her neck, rubbing and pressing deep into the tissue.

Selling the team. 

Pierces chance at a seat was done. Over. At this point in the year— who would want her? Who had the room to spare, and if they had the space, who's to say it would be for her?

This was it.

Her eyes trailed her father's footsteps out of the room. Not a clear thought rushed through her mind as she shot up from her seat, pushing past the blurred figures in her way until she reached the back of Jim's security team.

Pierce stalled, noticing the wide eyes around the Haas motorhome. But she didn't care. "Jim!" she called, loud enough that she knew he'd be able to hear. 

Jim Greene's dark brown eyes lifted, his step halting. He looked his daughter up and down, unimpressed, before motioning for her to walk with him.

Falling into step beside her father, she began her tirade. "What the fuck was that? You can't be serious? You're actually selling the—"

"Pierce." Her own name struck her silent, sounding more familiar to her then than it had in a while. In a way she didn't like. In a way that only seemed to successfully knock her down a peg, all in one fell syllable. "Not here." Jim's hiss was final, spoken through barred teeth and still lips, his chin hardly managing a wag.

She hated the way she obeyed. Her lips feeling as though they were own shut. The little girl living within her who's first instinct was to obey. It took her back to then, rapid memories blasting through the back of her eyelids as she took a deep breath, doing her best to keep up with Jim and his surrounding team of burly men in tailored black with shoes of the finest leather. Doing her best to not let it jar her, to remind herself that she was different now. Things were different now.

That girl didn't define her. She'd be better now, for her.

It was the mantra she repeated herself until they reached the Ford SUV, idling in its parked position in the middle of the parking lot.

Jim turned to her, in question, gesturing flippantly to the opened car door, his voice monotonous.

"Well?"

Pierce packed in her desire to spit at the very ground her fathers feet stood at, deciding instead to march swiftly past him and into the car he'd presented, slamming her own door shut before the guard at hand even had a chance to flinch.