Page 410 of His Hungry Wolf

Before I could figure it out, Lou got up and headed for the back door.

“And where do you think you’re going?” his mother chided with an aura of superiority.

Lou took off his jacket and flung it to the ground.

“Louis,” his mother called. “Louis!”

“Let him go, Martha,” his father said with a cool tone that silenced his wife.

I looked around at Lou’s family. I didn’t know what was happening but I knew Lou needed me. Heading out after him, I didn’t catch up to him until we were approaching the pool.

“Lou, you okay? Lou?”

“They changed the will. I don’t know how, but they did,” he finally said as we passed the pool and headed for the back lawn.

“You think so?”

Lou stopped and practically burned a hole in me with his eyes.

“Titus, my whole life my grandmother told me to prepare for when I inherited everything. My whole life! Now they’re saying that in her final weeks she suddenly changed her mind? That doesn’t even make sense.

“And what about switching to my father’s law firm?”

“Is that weird?” I asked innocently.

“My grandmother was an author! Two years ago she sat me down and explained that her lawyer specialized in managing the intellectual property of authors after they were gone. Her talking about dying brought me to tears. There was no way I would forget that situation. And just like that, she’s going to replace him with a firm that specialized in litigation? That’s nuts!”

Lou turned away and continued to storm off. I didn’t know what to say. Lou was implying that his parents stole his inheritance. How did I respond to that considering what else I saw?

It was like something powerful within his father was surfacing. He had said “It’s happening”. What was happening? Could I explain what I had witnessed to Lou even if I tried?

I continued following my best friend across the lawn to the woods behind it. About to enter the trees, Lou turned around and stared at the estate. I stood next to him.

“What are you thinking?” I asked wondering if he had seen what I had.

“Would you like to know how my family first made their money?”

“How?”

“Cotton and slavery. But if you would have asked my granddad, he would have said, “luck.” Right. It was luck.

“And when my great, great, great grandfather saw the civil war coming and invested in iron mines and processing factories, it was a little more of my family’s luck. Then when the Civil War broke out, my family supplied the south with guns. War is always good for business, but say that to my grandfather and he would have just claimed that it was a bit more of the ole family magic.

“Exploiting slaves, and then eight-year-old factory workers, and miners, it’s just a matter of being at the right place at the right time. It’s family luck,” Lou concluded mockingly.

I listened shocked. I had no idea what to say to all of that. I knew Lou’s family was rich and, it being the south, I guessed it was old money. But, I had no idea what that meant.

Lou always seemed so, I don’t know, carefree or something. It was hard to believe that this was the tree he fell from… unlike his brother. Because the only thing stopping Chris from sinisterly twirling his mustache was his inability to grow facial hair.

“Wow!” was all I could say.

“Yeah.”

“So, what are you gonna do now? Are you gonna get a lawyer and fight the will?”

“Fight my parents? Have you met them? You see what they’re willing to do to get what they want, right? There’s no winning against people like that.”

“Then…?”