Page 52 of Undertow
12
Sagan
Everything was a mess.
Actually, calling it a mess was kind. It was so far beyond that there weren’twordsfor the situation I found myself in. My parents weren’t simply broke, they were in massive,massivedebt.
Yeah, really.
They’d borrowed money from everyone they could and I didn’t even know how they planned to pull themselves out of this mess. Honestly, if circumstances were even slightly different, I would have started looking into them faking their deaths for a life insurance payout.
Dark? Oh yeah, but they fucking deserved it for what they left for me to clean up. Just in this one area of our family’s finances.
At first I thought we were just broke and that was enough of a mess. I was crushed and didn’t know what to do, deciding to admit I was in over my head and talk about it to Uncle Darren.
That was when I learned my parents had also been borrowing money. He thought I’d approached him to discuss themillionsmy mother had borrowed the year before.
Luckily, he’d been distracted Sunday, flying out to handle some things and told me not to even worry about it. He’d nevereven brought it up to her and whatever had happened with the family’s accounts or who had dropped the ball. But to toss whatever IOU I’d found and not think on it again.
I’d barely been able to keep my composure and say goodbye to him normally before I’d raced back to my father’s study. It took me a bit, but after going into the hidden fireproof vault there with family records and De la Rosa secrets, I found the ledger of debts.
And it was a long one.
At least you know all the hidden vaults and they told you something about them and your life now.
So my bitterness and dark attitude were more than valid.
I was so broke and in debt that I honestly didn’t know how I was going to fund the castle until my coronation. Luckily, the government paid for my coronation since it was a state event or we wouldn’t have been able tohave one.
How could they have done this to me? How could they have done this tothemselves?
And why?
It was all I could think about. I was so distracted it was beyond ridiculous, and the only way it wasn’t noticed more was because the government was closed in mourning. I was supposed to bemourningand grieving the loss of my parents.
Instead, I was cursing them every time I peeled back another layer of the onion. Seriously, I was beyond pissed at that.
Also, it wasn’t simply that they owed money or how much. It was how big of a mess they made doing it… Almost like they planned on never paying it all back. The whole situation screamed of corruption if I looked at it from the eyes of a stranger.
And I practically was one to my parents.
They’d borrowed a million here and a million there from different people. “Small” amounts to lend to the royal family and without any real documentation. Nothing legal or real collateral. A fucking IOU handshake bullshit that would be hard to trace later or be called on.
Butif any of these people talked to each other… Everything would fall apart.
Every.
Fucking.
Thing.
How could they have risked this and the family’s reputation? And where had the money allgone?
It was definitely something that would keep me up many,manynights and for years. I wasn’t sure I’d ever find the answers—or ones that would justify any of this—but that would have to wait since I had to fix this mess before people found out.
All it could take was one person calling in their debt thinking they could lose that money and bitching to someone else when I didn’t have it.
And I had to do it fast. Somehow.
