Not Us: Briggs & Jacqueline

Chapter 18

Chase's POV

Dad was screaming at me to turn on the TV from his office. I stepped out and looked at the flat screen we had in the middle waiting area on our floor. I started flipping through the channels as he ran out of his office trying to call someone and getting pissed every time he had to call back.

"What am I—"

"Fuck!" He said, looking pissed, cutting me off mid-question.

"What? What am I even looking for?" I looked at him and stopped flipping through the channels, waiting for him to say something. When he stays quiet, I start flipping through them again.

"There," he pointed at the screen. Lennon? What's she doing on TV? She was talking about fashion week. Was he pissed his little princess didn't answer his call? Jesus. He was such a fucking girl dad. Anything she wanted; he gave her. She just had to bat her bit eyes at him and boom. She'd get it. Probably how she got the fucking interview in the first place. I set the remote on the table as I headed back to my office when I heard her say, "Actually, there are eight of us." I froze.

What? The fuck?

The fuck did she just say? I had to have misheard her. The host quickly cuts to commercial and Lennon is waving at everyone. I swear when she looks at the camera is like she's looking right at me, taunting me. She just outed Dad to the fucking world. I look at the man himself and he's just staring wide-eyed, jaw firmly planted on the ground.

I grabbed my phone and called mom. Why wasn't she answering?! Then I called the legal department for the company and they said they'd be up. Then I called Dad's personal lawyer who just handled the fucking divorce like...yesterday!

"Dad!" I shook him to get him to focus on this shit, "You said Mom agreed to let me be the majority shareholder, right?"

"Yes. She said that I was going to have a lot of back child support and I'd need to pay that right away, and she didn't want me to struggle. Why?"

Okay. If Mom let him have the majority, we should be okay. Dad will just be broke and maybe only have to sell of a few shares. Hopefully nothing major. Two shares to five at most are all he can afford to sell. And he'd have to sell them to someone who Dad could count on to back him.

"Who holds the rest of the shares?"

"Your mother still owns 49% of the company. Two percent are public and I own 49%."

"That's not being majority holder, Dad! You guys both own 49%. Who is the other person?"

"I don't know. Why? What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is, Dad," I said sarcastic as fuck, "Mom could team up with whoever owns that tiny little 2% and then she'd be able to do what she wants. She'd have a 51% majority! Not only that, but she knows you're likely to have to sell shares of the company off to pay all the back child support!"

He rubbed his chin. I grabbed that giant Post-it notepad thing and laid it on the table in the waiting area. I turned it sideways and wrote Dad at the top with a line going down and another one connecting going width-wise to add all eight of us kids to it.

Fucking A. What a shit show.

Attached to the underside of that long line, I drew dashes. Eight of them. Then I added in the names I knew where they should be so we could figure out the math on this. I'm pretty sure with this coming public that he was going to be pressured to pay it back more quickly.

-Jason full 18 years

-Bodhi full 18 years

-Lennon full 18 years

-? Fifteen years

-? Fifteen years

-? Nine years

-? Five years

"That's a total of 80 years of child support due immediately. Because they're suing you for child support, right?" I asked, really concerned. Had they sued him yet?

"Even if they were going to sue me for child support, they only take twenty percent of my salary. But they haven't. So, no need to worry." He seemed so confident. The elevator dinged and a few people from legal came out of the elevator. Josey was not among them, thankfully. We'd need to add another dash if that kid came out as Dad's. There was one guy I didn't recognize.

"Mr. Johnathon Smith?" He asked, looking from me to Dad.

"That's me," Dad said stepping forward, sticking his hand out to shake it. An envelope was delivered into his hands instead.

"You've been served. Have a great day!" He smiled, snapping a picture and getting right back on the elevator before it closed.

What the fuck just happened?! I took the paperwork out of his hands when he didn't move.

"They're suing for back child support. Lennon said she wants hers set aside in a trust for any more or other children." This is a shit show. I look at him. We all look at him. Why is he just standing there?

"Dad. This is a big deal!" How was he not getting this? He just stood there so I decided to start throwing numbers at him. Maybe that would snap him out of this... stupor? Whatever the fuck was happening.

"According to Google, the average amount of child support per child is $5,150 per year. Multiply that by 80 years owe immediately."

"What is that like 300,000?" He asked with a shrug. How could he be this unbothered?

"$412,000."

As his eyes got big, his phone rang. He put it on speakerphone. His lawyer called. Two more children had been located. How many fucking kids does that make? Ten? Eleven? Fuck! How could he not keep it in his pants?! I've only got one kid so far, but I'm already doing better than him if the age of my oldest brother is to be believed at fucking thirty-nine!

"Guess we need to add another 32 years to that total that's due immediately," I mumbled. Dad elbowed me in the side. That hurt. He's surprisingly spry for an old man. Guess he'd have to be with the way he's starting his own fucking cult over here with all these goddamn kids popping up like fuckin daisies. I rubbed my side while Dad was talking to his lawyer. I totaled up the amount and just about fell over.

I turned my phone so Dad could see the total number on the calculator. The legal team leaned in, just to see how fucked the company was. How fucked their CEO was.

He looked at it muttering, 'That's not right. That can't be right. That's got to be a wrong number.'

"That's what you owe. $669,500 immediately. Not counting all the years left of child support to pay." It's gotta be over three-quarters of a million. With all the fuckin kids?!

At that, he did fall over.

And I called 9-1-1.

Fuck my life. How the fuck does this keep getting more and more fucked up?