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chapter twenty-three: lorelei m. myrtle v. the world

a/n:

the legal workings in this chapter (executing of the will, etc etc) are all based on stuff i saw in a movie. i do not think that this is actually how that works-- and neither does the internet-- so don't quote me on it or anything.

TW(S) —— physical violence

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"You should come back with us."

Rory, wearing Rick's U of MN sweatshirt and a pair of sunglasses that she doesn't actually need, nstands on a runway in England's best private airport and watches Adam's face fall the longer that he tries and fails to convince her. He looks like he might cry, or, at the very least, like he knows she's about to deliver devastating news, and the lump in her throat grows larger with each passing second. It's six in the morning, the sun tries its best to glare through the thick blanket of clouds, and the Ducks and Adam are about to fly back to Minnesota——

But she's not going with them.

"You can stay with me and my parents if you need to."

"I can't..." Her voice will only come out as a whisper, and she tries and fails to smile at him. "We still have to go over the will, and I have a whole bunch of stuff to do in Michigan before I even think about it."

It's only partly a lie. Elijah's lawyer is flying in to go over everything with an executor. But she doesn't have to tell him that her business in Michigan is convincing her dad to transfer her to her old school because she never wants to see Eden Hall again. That's her business, and it would just make him upset. (Maybe it's naive for her to blame the school for everything that happened, but it has to be a part in it, right? Removing herself from their situation and removing it from hers should fix everything, should it not?)

"But——"

"You're my best friend. I will see you again." She cuts him off, and the pilot finally says it's time for them to board. "Remember that."

Adam's eyebrows pinch to the center of his forehead, and Rory wonders if anyone's ever told him that his eyes are incredibly intense when they want to be.

"This kind of feels like a goodbye."

In lieu of responding—— because she's not even sure if she has a response—— Rory hugs him tightly. When she pulls away, he looks down at her with this contrastingly soft look in his eyes. He's sad, and he isn't stupid, and she feels like she's betraying him for trying to take care of herself.

"Call me when you get back to your house?" She says softly. "It's common courtesy to let me know you're safe, y'know."

Her words must provide him relief, and his shoulders sag. Adam nods, sniffing.

"Of course."

The pilot calls for them again. None of the Ducks have moved, all of them staring over at the two outcasts as they bid each other goodbye.

Rory feels itchy under their gazes, but elects to ignore it in favor of squeezing Adam's shoulder.

"You should go. Don't want to piss your pilot off any more."

"Yeah..."

Slowly, he drags himself away from her, looking back once or twice. He's not the only one. Luis and Kenny have lingering gazes, as well as Les, and Dwayne, who tips his hat in her direction. Rory waits on the asphalt until the air traffic controllers force her to get back in Joe's car, which is already running and has been kept warm and playing soft music just for her, and then she watches through the window.

It all feels like a scene in a terrible movie—— a somber goodbye, withheld information, and the plane taking off to the climax of Golden Slumbers by the Beatles.

It also makes her, suddenly and without warning, very sick. Like a weight has been lifted from her only to leave a gaping hole in its wake.

(If this is how things are meant to be, then why is she in so much pain?)

Joe eyes her in the rearview mirror as she puts her head in her hands and exhales shakily. Krystal's arm snakes around her back and Rory allows her stepmother to rub it comfortingly.

"Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine." She wipes her face and takes a deep breath, lifting her head. "Can we just go, please?"

Joe meets her gaze and nods. He doesn't even yell at her to buckle her seatbelt before he goes.

The sky has opened up with a new downpour by the time they arrive back at the manor. It leaves Rory standing in the foyer feeling like a drowned rat, shivering and trying to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering, with her arms wrapped tightly around herself until one of the staff came with a towel for her.

"Wake me when the lawyer gets here?" She asks, voice wavering as her body trembles.

The staff member nods and doesn't say anything about her going upstairs.

After a hot shower, Rory lays in bed, scratching the back of Chester's head as he rests it on her stomach, and tries to not feel... empty.

Without the Ducks, nothing belongs to her. She'll return to her home in Michigan and find that her bedroom will be void of all personality; it will be full of awards for her academic accomplishments, and her medals, and the various paraphernalia that she only got for being her father's daughter. It'll be like she's fourteen again and trapped in the cycle of keeping up her family's illusions of grandeur—— it'll be like the Junior Goodwill Games never happened, like it was all just some dream turned nightmare and, now that she's awake, she can return to life as normal.

Sighing deeply, she stares at the ceiling.

(If this was her choice, why does she regret it so much?)

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A staff member comes, like promised, to get her a few hours later and tells her that the lawyer has touched down in the country.

She heads downstairs and slips into the dining room, hoping to avoid all members of her family as they all gather anxiously by the door. There's a pot of coffee amidst the mountains of breakfast food made by the people who work here and other various edible things that were gifted to them. She pours herself a mug of black coffee and winces as she drinks it, washing it all down with a scone and some jam.

Joe finds her as she goes to pour a second cup—— this time with creamer.

"How many cups of coffee have you had?"

She jumps and turns to him, spilling a little onto the counter. "Just one."

Well, just one today.

Over the course of the last few days, she's definitely had enough coffee to have adverse effects later in life. If she would just sleep, it wouldn't be a problem, but there was too much stuff to do for her to be down for the count.

Skeptically, he nods and eyes the mug. "No more after this. Your grandfather's lawyer and the executor are on their way."

"Okay."

Rory takes the mug and finds herself enjoying the coffee much more this time around. It warms her on the way down and she pretends for a moment that she feels like a human. The man leaves her eventually, getting called to go facilitate a safe entry for the lawyer, the executor, and their publicist.

As soon as she's no longer under his watchful eye, she pours herself another cup of coffee.

She gets caught anyway. Just not by Joe.

"Weren't you just told to drink only one more cup of coffee." Chuck is leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, that shit-eating smirk still on his face.

Rory mixes the creamer into her coffee whilst maintaining defiant eye contact with her cousin.

"What are you gonna do? Take it from me? Tattle?"

He shrugs. "If you want to stunt your growth, be my guest."

She rolls her eyes, muttering 'I stopped growing years ago' under her breath as he walks further into the room and sits on one of the island bar seats.

"Excited to see what's on the will?" Rory asks, leaning back against the counter top and watching him over the rim of her cup.

"Not really."

She quirks an eyebrow.

"Seriously? You're not just here to see how much money you got?"

"Nope. Let me let you in on a little secret, Lo—— the old man knocked me out of the will years ago."

Rory makes a face at him. "That... really doesn't explain anything. If you're not getting any money, and you hated our grandfather, and everyone hates you, then why bother to show up?"

Chuck grins, leaning toward her.

"That's for me to know and for you to find out."

She can't even ask him to elaborate because, as soon as the words leave his mouth, their aunt poked her head in and tells them that they need to come to the living room. The executor is sitting on one of the couches across from the family and opens up his briefcase, his assistant and her grandfather's lawyer helping him spread out the various papers on the table before him. Jerry, their publicist, stands on the executor's other side.

While Chuck crosses the room to the empty seat that's next to his mother's, Rory stays to the back of the room and leans against a wall.

Her coffee is starting to get lukewarm.

"Well. It's nice that you all got together for this——" The executor says, and Jerry makes a face because he knows that it isn't a nice thing—— "It isn't legally necessary but we thought because you're all in town, and some of you are leaving, it would be best to have you all present."

(Best is definitely a nice way to put it.)

"There is another reason I thought that this gathering would be, uh, beneficial. Eli altered his will about a year ago, right before the diagnosis, and asked me not to submit it to the courts for probate until his death. So, in case there's any confusion about anything, we're all together—— we can talk."

Now that it's probated, it's official.

Rory's never given much thought to how this would work.

"I can't imagine any of it will be that complicated, Eli's assets included, um."

"The houses." Her father chimes in.

"Yes, the house in Detroit, the house here, and a home in the Hamptons, all of which he owned outright. Um..."

Can't he read? Perturbed, she exchanges a glance with Greg, who shrugs.

Her mother hums. "One billion."

The man adjusts his glasses, casting a sweeping glance over the crowd.

"Right. In various cash accounts and investments, yes, and of course the real asset is the company..."

"Myrtle Enterprises." Rory says before she can stop herself.

"Myrtle Enterprises, yes. The CEO position of which Elijah formally held until his death."

Janice puts a hand on her father's good knee, and he squeezes it. He smiles tightly.

Rory watches from beneath furrowed brows.

(Unbeknownst to her, their respective spouses do, too.)

"He, uh, he did write up a statement when he made the recent changes. He wanted to read it first, so——" He starts to sound slightly nervous as he scans the paper over with his eyes—— "'Some of you may be surprised by the choice I have made here. No pleasure was taken in the exclusion, and its purpose was not to sow greater discord in the family, quite the opposite. Please accept it with grace and without bitterness. But do accept it. It's for the best.'"

Nearly all eyes turn to Chuck, like everyone knows that he got removed from the will. Most of the looks are nothing short of condescending but there's something much softer about Rory's gaze. She knows that he's mean, but it's unnecessarily humiliating. Katherine——the elder of her father's sister and Chuck's mother——touches his hand, and he immediately gets up to move to a chair far away from her.

The assistant hands him an envelope and he removes a single sheet of paper from it.

Rory feels sweat bead at her brow. A premonition.

Something bad is about to happen.

"Okay." He says after reading it. "So—— oh, wow, not complex at all. This'll be quick."

Like a pack of hungry animals, they all lean toward the man in their seats. Rory watches over the rim of her mug, eyes a little wide because she doesn't trust the warble in the man's voice.

"'I, Elijah Myrtle, being of sound mind and body——yada yada—— I hereby direct that all my assets, both liquid and otherwise, I leave in their entirety to my granddaughter, Lorelei Mary Myrtle."

All of the air is sucked, immediately, from Rory's lungs.

"My entire ownership of Myrtle Enterprises, the copyright of its brand, and the Chief Operating Officer position I leave entirely to my granddaughter, Lorelei Mary Myrtle."

The room spins around her and the family is so silent.

Or, at least, she thinks they are.

All she can hear is her own heartbeat.

But then, suddenly, Oliver bursts out of his chair and grabs the will.

"No!"

"No!" Her aunt cries, too, at the same time her husband scoffs a "What the genuine shit?"

"No! What?!" Oliver's voice cracks and he looks up at her grandfather's lawyer, Alan, desperately. "That can't be——that can't be right."

Alan nods. "It's right."

Jerry's eyebrows are at his hairline and her Aunt Elise starts to hyperventilate, putting her head between her knees and breathing deeply.

"No, no, no, no Alan this can't be legal." Katherine shouts in his face. "There are—— we're all his family! She's not even an adult!"

"He was well aware. He went on to say—— Should I die before she comes of legal age, she will have full reign of picking the mentor that fills her position until she can take it."

It all hits Rory then—— one billion dollars, the company, the copyright, the CEO position.

Dizzy, she drops her mug, and it shatters on the floor.

Chuck starts to laugh, then. It's an evil, mean-spirited laugh that slowly gets louder over all of the confusion and the cursing. He laughs so hard that he starts to cry, tears rolling down his face, and the attention of everyone, for the exception of Rory, briefly gets dragged to him.

"Alan, there's a mistake." Jon, Elise's husband, says as he rubs her back.

"What if it's—— what if it's what he wanted?" Elise pants, still halfway through what seems to be a panic attack.

"No. This is a mistake. This is ours."

Katherine takes the paper from whoever has it. "Take that piece of paper, shove it up your ass, and get out!"

None of them move, but Chuck slips out. His giddy, evil laughter trails after him.

"Oh, my god." It's the first thing that Rory manages to say, her voice hardly there.

Her uncle tries to appease his wife. "Katy——"

"No!" Katherine wrenches her arm from her husband's grip and with the onslaught on the old, unwavering lawyer. "We need to talk and we need to figure this out and we are not going anywhere! Get out! We're the Myrtles, goddamnit! This is still our house!"

Her final sentence cuts through the tension like a knife, a beat of silence overcoming the room as they all turn to face the legal team again. The executor looks down at the will and his assistant points helpfully.

"Sorry, there's another box. Uh 'Likewise, the houses in Detroit, New York, and England—— and all belongings therein—— I leave to Lorelei Myrtle' and, again, in the case that he died before she was eighteen, My daughter-in-law Krystal Myrtle will preside over the properties until Lorelei can claim them."

Oliver, who had been eerily silent, turns to Rory, who is still standing there and staring into nothingness with wide eyes like a deer caught in headlights, her socks wet with cold coffee and cream, and fails to hide the cold rage that consumes him.

It isn't him that speaks to her, though.

It's Janice.

"Lorelei, did you know about this?"

"Yeah! Did you?!"

She flinches at her father's tone. "N-No! Nobody—— he didn't—— I don't—— I need to sit down."

Her father, his siblings, their children, and their spouses all descend upon her like vultures with bones. Krystal pushes through to stand by her side as Joe and the rest of their security detail intervene in her favor. With the two men taking control of the situation, everyone gets corralled back into seats; still, though, the room is so tense that even the stoic faced executor looks vaguely uncomfortable, and everyone looks at Rory as if she's got some explanation somewhere in her mind.

As if Chuck wasn't obviously the only person in the house that knew what was going on.

"Lola, dear, do you understand the levity of the situation?"

Rory nods slowly, eyes still wide, eyebrows slightly furrowed.

She's a billionaire with the ownership of a copyright. In just a year and a half, she'll also own three houses, stock in a company, and be the CEO of a company.

It's easy to explain, not easy to digest.

"Good." Katherine breathes, still looking hysterical. "That's good."

"What are you going to do, kid?" Knox asks the question they all want to ask.

With the weight of the world on her shoulders, Rory's mind is unfortunately blank. She turns to look Oliver in the eye.

"I'm going to drop out of Eden Hall Academy effective immediately and re-enroll in my previous school..."

Oliver jumps up from his seat and stumbles toward his daughter, so red in the face that he's nearly purple.

"You'll do no such thing! You're my daughter, you do as I say——"

Rory, shocked by the fact that she's said it but feeling power, like blood and red hot anger, coursing through her veins, grips the arm of the couch. She looks away from him, at the lawyers and other legal representatives.

"I want him fired. I want Gerri, the general counsel, to take over as CEO until I'm ready to."

"What are you doing——"

Oliver reaches for her but she dodges the swipe and keeps walking toward the lawyers.

"And I want them all frozen out of everything. I don't want any of them anywhere near any of the money that they haven't taken out yet."

"What are you doing——"

Her grandfather's lawyer nods, though, and takes his big, brick-like mobile phone to start typing a number into it.

"Stop!" Katherine orders him, but he doesn't.

"Lorelei!" The vein in Oliver's neck is popping out, angry and throbbing as he gnashes his teeth. "I will send you straight to the reformatory!——"

"No, you won't!"

The shout almost startles her as much as it startles him. There's a shockwave throughout the living room as everyone registers her words; her mother gasps and Katherine gawks, and another sharp burst of laughter falls past Chuck's lips.

"You don't get to control me anymore!"

There's a fire in Oliver's eyes that should terrify her. It's becoming clear that, while he's never done it before, he's thinking about hitting her—— but Rory refuses to back down. She's the sole beneficiary, a multi-millionaire.

"I am the sole beneficiary!" She isn't quite sure why, but there are tears in her eyes. "Me! He left it all to me!"

Oliver's face is more than purple now. "I'll bring you to court, you vicious little bitch! We'll all contest the will!"

"And I'll ruin your life, dad. I'll tell the whole world all about the alcohol abuse, and the drugs, and your neglect. All of it."

She hears the sound of his palm hitting her face before she feels it. Her whole body tenses as her head whips to the side and that's the only reason she doesn't stumble back from him as the family, again, dissolves into chaos. He's screaming curses at her as the security hauls him out of the room and his sisters follow him.

Rory feels electric. Like a hot wire coiled in on itself, ready to snap.

She licks her bottom lip and tastes blood as her senses return to her. Krystal has a hand on either side of her neck, face wrought with concern.

"Jesus Christ, Rory. Are you alright?"

"Yeah." She nods a little dumbly. "I'm okay."

Her stepmother hugs her anyway. She can feel Krystal's heartbeat through her skin, and hear the string of blasphemous exclamations followed by soft apologies, but it hardly registers with her.

She's too busy staring at Tara who, with her brother, snickers.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing." Tara says, and then continues anyway. "It's just... Look at you. You're the dog who not only got the bone, but the whole world, too."

And then something inside Rory finally, truly snaps.

She and Tara fought when they were little kids, sure, but it was all pinching, biting, and hair pulling when they were nine and thirteen. It was sweaty grips on locks of hair and jagged teeth sunk into freckles in between all of those times Tara's sixteen-year-old brother would lock Rory in their dog's cage and swear it was a game they were all in on but refuse to let her out until she barked.

This is nothing like that. This is real. This is Rory's nail's digging into the skin of Tara's neck, and adults shouting as she wrestles her nearly nineteen year old step sister to the ground.

The ghosts of their childhood are present, though, in the way that Rory's lips curl back over her teeth like a dog's would, bleeding from where her father's ring split them open.

Greg hooks an arm around Rory's waist and tears her off Tara, hauling her off the ground as someone fights to unwind her fingers from the other girl's hair.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!" Tara sobs, holding a spot on her head where the hair got tugged too hard.

"Get her away from me!" Rory struggles to even out her breathing, writhing in her cousin's arms. "Get her out of this house before I kill her!"

For the second time today (and, maybe, in her life), her wishes are respected. Her mother and stepfather rush Tara out of the house and everyone but her cousins and her immediate family, with the urging of security staff, follows them; they shout apologies for their behavior at her, and plead to stay, and demand NDAs all the while.

Wiping the blood from her lip, Rory wrenches herself from Greg's arms and runs up the stairs. She takes the steps by two and then jogs down the main hall.

Billionaire heiress Lorelei M. Myrtle stands on the balcony of her ancestral home, cradling her bruising fists and watching her stepfather force her stepsister into a car with a blank expression. Her family turns to look up at her, most of them with unreadable emotions in their eyes, and she resists the urge to laugh. The trees rustle with the bitterly cold breeze and a bird calls in the distance—— life is beating on around her, and the Earth is still turning.

She weighs the good against the bad, wondering why she doesn't feel as free as she should.

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a/n:

word count — 3865

yes. yes. jail and hell have my name on them, i get it /j

comments and votes are super appreciated! they let me know that you guys like my writing and they motivate me to continue! thank you