AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Charlie remembered where he was and turned back to the rest of the room. Robert was standing now, his face red with anger.
"Maybe you read that wrong," Bianca told the lawyer.
"Obviously, he read it wrong. Dad would never leave the team to some construction guy."
"He's your cousin!"
Everyone turned in shock to see Charlie's mother standing now at their end of the table with rage in her eyes. The last time he heard his mother raise her voice like that was when he showed up at home after curfew in high school. It made him a little scared of her and the way his cousins seemed to have shut up made him think they were scared of her too.
Barb took a deep breath and sat back down in her seat, but there was still rage etched on her face.
"Charlie is your cousin," she said with determination. "He loves that team more than anyone in this family and Tony knew it. That's why he left the team to Charlie. So stop pretending that you suddenly care about the Otters."
Bianca could only stare while Robert's hands balled up into fists. "This isn't over," he said sneeringly before stomping out of the conference room. Bianca stood up with a huff and followed with her husband trailing behind her.
Tony's attorney took another drink of water as if this was a normal occurrence for him and looked back down at the paper.
"This is my final will and testament," he said. "Note for the record that Anthony Kildore's signature is on the bottom and this concludes the reading. I'll be in my office when you're ready to transfer assets as needed."
The only sound in the conference room was the attorney shuffling his papers. But Charlie could barely hear that over his heart beating loudly in his ears. Maybe he heard it wrong or maybe it was wishful thinking that didn't actually exist. There was just no way he owned a professional hockey team. And did the lawyer say it came with a million-dollar salary? Or was it a billion-dollar salary?
Did he just become a billionaire?
"Mr. Westmore?" Charlie looked up to see someone from the hockey team standing next to him. "I'm the lawyer on retainer for your hockey team."
"My hockey team?"
The man stared at him then shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other as if this was just as uncomfortable for him as it was for Charlie.
"Here's my card, Mr. Westmore. We'll get in touch through your lawyers soon, but you can call me if you need something before then."
Charlie nodded and looked down at the card. Did he even have lawyers for the Otters lawyers to contact? His mind was so out of sorts that he couldn't even read the jumbled letters on the piece of paper in front of him and had no clue what to even do with it.
None of this was making any sense.
He enjoyed spending time with his uncle and it was the highlight of his day most times. He was used to working on construction sites and directing people where to put materials or getting his work boots stuck in the mud. That's what you do when you're a project manager on a new condo building going up in Wilmette.
But this wasn't like managing some wood and drywall. Owning a hockey team was a completely different type of project.
"Charlie?"
His mother's hand was on his arm and he looked up to see the concern on her face. That's when it really hit him. This wasn't normal. None of this was normal. One of his favorite people was gone and Charlie owned a hockey team.
The Chicago Otters, Uncle Tony's beloved hockey team, now belonged to him.
Chapter Two
Maggie Overland pushed her cart through the depths of the Chicago Otters' arena hoping that nothing bad would befall all the desserts she had on there. This was going to be the biggest presentation she had ever done and she needed to make sure she got every piece to the luxury boxes as carefully as possible.
There were the slices of black cherry chocolate cake and salted caramel mousse cups and square petit fours that she had decorated with the Otters logo on top.
But her favorite thing on the cart were the edible chocolate shot glasses she made that she liked to serve Irish cream in. That would be the end shot for these hockey people that was really going to top off this presentation.
She just needed to get there first. The cart was doing fine so far, but Maggie was doing all she could to not let go of it and have it fly down the ramp leading to the elevator and crash. She would have to make a note of that if the bakery got this contract.
But Maggie really needed this to go well to get that contract.
Overland Bakery had been operating in Chicago for more than seventy years. Her great-grandparents started it, then her grandparents took over, and her dad had been working there his whole life. He took control of it fifteen years ago when her grandfather retired.
