Rise To Riches: The Rejected Son-in-law's Revenge

chapter 6

Lucas's POV

Nicholas Rivers sported a smile, exposing his attractive white teeth as he moved up to Lucas. He laughed out loud as he arrived at where Lucas was still standing and put his arms around Lucas’s shoulders in an embrace.

Lucas remained frozen at the moment, wondering how the hell Nathaniel and Nicholas were buddies. He didn’t dare to return the hug, as he felt humiliated and irritated at the very fact that the man was standing in front of him, smiling.

"It feels too good to be real. I’m delighted you’re back, Nathan!” Nicholas muttered as he released Lucas.

“We prayed for your return every single day,” he added, mimicking a concerned face.

Someone scoffed beside him, and he turned his glance to Samuel, who had a smirk on his face as he stared at Nicholas.

"Hard to believe that you prayed with you being busy engaging every lady in town," Samuel replied, his words filled with hate.

Nicholas rolled his eyes. "It's common courtesy to congratulate someone when something good happens to them, Colt," he muttered, laying both of his hands on his waist.

"If you call engaging a married woman six days after breaking your last relationship, is that something good?” Samuel mocked him, shaking his head. "Then you need some redefining, dude." he finished.

Nicholas snorted in annoyance as he clenched his teeth. "Piper Ross is the best thing to ever happen to me... I don’t expect you to understand what love is," he hissed.

Lucas sighed. He truly was going to punch Nicholas if he spoke one more dumb word. The man who had engaged Piper even though she was still married to him was standing in front of him, and he couldn’t react without a reason.

He cleared his throat. "Love? She’s married to another man." He mumbled even when he knew he shouldn’t have said that. He just came up from a ten-year coma and should not be aware of that information, but Lucas couldn’t stop himself.

Nicholas turned to face him with a scowl on his face, failing to notice his slip-up. “A good-for-nothing piece of trash. He’s useless and poor. He has nothing to give to a woman like Piper,” he fired.

Lucas was getting furious by the second. "And you, of course, have something to offer her," he murmured, chuckling gently. He had fucking given Piper one of his kidneys.

Nicholas arched a brow. "Of course I do... Besides, he’s now out of the picture," he remarked.

"Because they killed him," he spat impulsively without thinking.

Everyone glanced at him like he had uttered something crazy. Could it be that his body had been buried discreetly without any news of his death? He thought so because it was evident that no one knew about his demise. He needed to find out what had happened to him, or perhaps his body.

Nicholas squinted his eyes, looked oddly at Lucas, and snorted, apparently dispelling the tension that had been building up in the room.

“ No! Divorced. She divorced him. I saw the divorce papers. The idiot couldn’t even fight for his marriage," Nicholas chipped.

Divorce? That means the Ross family has not announced his death. Why? The question hung on his lips.

"I bet she regretted the day she decided to marry him," Nicholas added.

Lucas tightened his palm into a fist, preparing to unleash a blow on Nicholas’s face, but before he could lift his hand, Scott stopped him. He had not noticed when Scott had returned to the room after he left. He eyed Scott, pushing him to let go, but Scott shook his head.

He observed Scott turn to Nicholas and speak suddenly. "Maybe you need to tell your engagement tales some other day, because, as you can see, we just got back from the hospital and Nathan needs to rest," he stated through his gritted teeth.

Nicholas evidently got the message to fuck off from Scott because he rolled his eyes and exited with a snort.

“ asshole…” Samuel mumbled after Nicholas left.

"Tell me about it," Scott mumbled.

Lucas pulled his hand out of Scott’s clutches. "How the hell am I friends with such an asshole?" he snapped, pointing at himself.

Scott rolled his eyes. "We went to the same school with him, so friends? I don’t think so. acquaintance? Yes. Plus, we do business with the Rivers family," he explained.

He snarled in irritation. He should have understood that Nicholas was in the rich folks' group. He stroked his chest and found Scott staring at him.

"I'm fine... Can I rest now?" he muttered. He would have gone upstairs himself, but Lucas knew nothing about the mansion. Not even Nathaniel’s room.

Scott groaned. "Yeah, I’ll escort you to your room," he muttered, leading the way as Lucas unhappily followed him up the stairs.

The upper floor was another room of its own; it included a communal area with a giant television and a game section. He strolled down the corridor, where the rooms were located. Scott halted after they passed two doors and pulled the third door open.

Nathaniel would have sworn that the room was greater than the entire ground level of the Ross family mansion. It was big. A giant bed was spread out in the center of the room, with a massive bookcase placed on one side of the room, loaded with books. He chuckled. Nathaniel had to be a reader, he thought.

Three doorways led to different regions in the room, he noticed. He wouldn’t be surprised if the room included a jacuzzi, a walk-in closet, and even another mini room. It was spacious enough to even fit a game room. Instead of being stunned since this was actually Nathaniel’s room, he appeared like he actually missed the space.

"I miss this... It feels good to be home,” he whispered as he switched his attention to Scott. Stepping over to the study area at the corner of the room, he brushed his fingers along the edges of the table.

Scott stayed back, watching him, maybe to give him that privacy or to be suspicious of something else but after some moments, he left the room and closed the door without saying a word.

He heaved a sigh. Lucas was going to step away from the table when his hand felt something. He grimaced as he dropped his body to see under the table, spotting white paper pasted to the edge of the table.

He reached for it and pulled it out, perching on the table as he opened the folded paper. A flash drive slipped from the paper on the floor, and he picked it up, peering at it.

His eyes turned to the paper in his palm. It was a list, Lucas noticed. He furrowed his brow as he read what was on the paper. He could tell that it was a transaction list. But why would Nathaniel store this under his table? he pondered, glancing at the names on the list and the flash drive he was holding.

His gaze traced each name to another column, and his eyes expanded. "Shit!” he cursed, seeing the numbers attached to the names on the list.

“This is huge," he said as he glanced at the massive amount of money that was on the page. He was not a fool; he knew what the money represented; it was laundered money.

He walked around the table instantly and opened the laptop that was on it, inserting the flash drive. He sighed as he requested a password to access it. Lucas didn’t have Nathaniel’s memories and, thus, wouldn’t know the password. Maybe he should ask Scott, he thought.

With no way of accessing the laptop, he sighed and rose. If the paper was a list of laundered money, then the flash drive carried more, he thought as he searched about the room for where to hide what he had just discovered.

It suddenly dawned on him: what if Nathaniel’s accident had been planned? he wondered. He didn’t know why he felt the way he did, but he knew that something was odd with the names on the list.

The only possible location to hide them was back to where they had been hidden in the first place: under the table edge. He placed it back there quickly when he heard a knock on the door.

One thing was obvious: Nathaniel knew something that he shouldn’t have been privy to.

The door opened, and Beth went into the room, standing by the door with a smile on her face as if she were unsure of coming farther into the room. He couldn’t help returning the contagious smile with one of his own.

"Dinner will be served in five minutes in the dining room," she told him.

Lucas nodded and watched her leave the room in a hurry before it occurred to him that he had no idea where the dining room was.

"I should have fucking asked," he murmured.