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She wouldn’t want to embarrass her husband and his family by showing people what sort of family she came from. Phillip knew that he could get into trouble by hitting her, but he wasn’t worried. Rosie would want the world to know that she had a good family and not one that would knock her around if she needed it. No matter how much she needed it.

After getting back to his apartment, he realized then that he needed something better. At least something that showed he was related to big money. He was still unsure if that part of the Malones was true or not; he was willing to bet that it was simply by the size of the house that they’d been in this morning. Laughing to himself, he figured that by this time next week he’d have about everything the way it should have been all along. Rosie would be at his beck and call, and York would just stay out of it because he wouldn’t want to get involved in a fist fight with him.

Not to say that York wasn’t fit. But he only seemed to be fit like someone who took drugs to have the body that he had. It might take him a while to remember how to be street smart, but Phillip knew that he had that and more over the kid, and that would keep him from hitting back. He knew the type that York was.

All talk and no substance. Laughing again, he told himself that one punch to the man would show him who was the bigger man, and he’d be doing whatever he wanted to get him to do what he wanted. And turning over money when he wanted it was going to be what he was going to get. There was no way that he’d be able to turn him down, or he’d hit on Rosie. That, he thought, was going to be the best deterrent of him being told no. Phillip didn’t like being told no, and he was going to not hear that word from either of them again. He had a plan.

His plan was to knock the man around a bit and show him what he’d be getting if he didn’t open his wallet every time he wanted. He didn’t notice if he had a lot of cash when he gave him the two hundred, but he’d demand that he had at least a couple of grand in his wallet for when he wanted it. He figured weekly he’d be hitting the man up for some cash, or he’d be knocking Rosie around. No one wanted their wife to be hurt, and he figured that the man would be no different.

Looking for something better, Phillip was able to find two places that he wanted to live. One of them was a condo that would never have him mowing the lawn again. He only had a small patch to mow in his lawn now, but it was made harder because he hated to mow. The other was a house that had just recently been built, and it looked like it had about a dozen bedrooms in it.

Phillip figured that it would take him a whole week and a half to mess up the house so badly that it needed staff, and he was going to have that as well. Messing with him was going to cost them a great deal of money, he only just realized, and Phillip was going to get what was coming to him.

There was an open house in the morning for the house, and he was going to be the first there to make an offer. He’d just have it filled out with his sister’s name, and that would be the end of him living in a dump. Excitement made him feel good about himself, and he wondered why it had taken him so long to want to knock Rosie around again. It wasn’t as if she’d been all that helpful to him. She’d make him pay her back when he borrowed money, and that shit was for the birds.

Thinking about his credit card, he wondered if he could apply for more credit on it and have an unlimited amount to charge. He didn’t know how to make that work, but he was sure that York would. His way of having unlimited credit would make it so he’d not have to go to his sister so much. Unless she didn’t pay the bills monthly.

That was going to be something else that he brought up when he spoke to her. That she was going to pay his bills too. Rubbing his hands together, Phillip realized that he needed a list if he was going to remember everything, and he finally found a notebook and pen in his bathroom of all places. He might even have a contract drawn up between them so that he could sue her if she didn’t do as she was told.

By the time he was ready for bed, having exhausted himself thinking of new ways to spend money, he had four pages of notes to talk to his sister about. He even made himself a little drawing of blood down the side of the list that would be for how many times he was going to hit her if she told him no. He wanted her to get that notion out of her head right now that she was ever going to tell him no again. She had it, and now he was going to have it as well.

He also needed a new mattress. And while he was thinking of what to get, he realized that he was going to need all new furniture if he was going to be living in a brand new house. He’d want staff too, as well as gardeners. There was no point in being a man of leisure if he was going to have to clean up after himself or mow the lawn.

His mind was working overtime, and by the time he got it to slow down, he had been tossing and turning for about two hours. He was going to be exhausted by the time he made it to his new house, and that would make him cranky.

Getting up when his alarm went off, he was ready to go to the open house an hour before they opened. He didn’t bother with breakfast as he’d heard somewhere that they usually had food at this sort of thing. When he was the first in line to see the house, he went in looking for the realtor. Without seeing the house fully, he decided to make an offer on the house.

“I’ll pay three hundred grand for this place.” He asked for an application, having remembered that he was going to need his sister’s information, and told the woman that he was good for it. “My sister is married to York Malone, and she is going to buy this place for me.”

“I’m afraid your offer is too low, sir. This house is going for one point eleven million dollars as it sits.” He nearly laughed at her when she said that. A million dollars for a house? He thought that she was joking. “If you’d like to put in an offer for the asking amount, that’s a place we can start. I have a feeling that there is going to be a bidding war on this place that will nearly double the asking price.”

“You’re joking.” She shook her head, and he looked around then. “It’s just a house. Not even a finished house.”

“The house is in mid-finish so that the new owners can pick out carpets and colors for their new home. This house has nine bedrooms.” She went on about what the house had, but all he could focus on was that they wanted a million dollars to purchase a house. “Did you want to make an offer? I’m sure that after today the house will sell.”

“It’s just a house.” She nodded at him and walked away. Phillip wasn’t sure that the Malones had that much money for a house, especially one that still needed work. Like, there were no doors hanging on the doorways, nor anything else that he could see that made it look like it was finished. He just didn’t know what to think. Then he thought that his sister would just have to save her money up and he’d have this house. It looked like it was bigger than hers had been.

But it might not have been their home. He was beginning to feel like he needed to know more information about his new family before he spent too much and he’d have nothing left over. As soon as he sat down at the little table with the cookies, not even a good muffin, he filled out the paperwork for the new house with his sister’s information and handed it to the realtor. He wanted the house, and he was going to get it.

He wasn’t even home when he was told that his offer had been outbid. Since he’d never done anything like this before, he asked if he could call her back. As soon as he got off the phone with her, he Googled how to offer on a house and was surprised by how much he didn’t know. Reading it all, he was ready to purchase his house armed with the information that he’d gotten and made a counteroffer. But even before he could have her call back, she said that she had an offer more than that.

He told her three million dollars, and that shut her up. That should get him the house, and he was excited about it when she told him that she’d call him back if he was outbid. He’d better not be. He thought three million for a house was a little bit excessive, but since it wasn’t his money, he didn’t care how much he had to pay for it. They’d better get it for him.

Chapter 7

York listened to the realtor about the house. He knew just who the man was that bid three million for the house and why he’d done it. She told him that the man had offered so little at first that she’d written him off as someone who didn’t know about houses. Well, she was right; the man was about as stupid as they came when it came to him bidding on the house that his brother owned.

“What’s the next highest bid for the house? The one that would be just under the three million mark?” She told him. “I would suggest that you go with that one. The three million dollars isn’t going to be paid for by the man you told me about. He’s thinking that I’m going to somehow pay for it when I know for a fact that he doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. He’s trying to make a point.”

“He should be arrested; that’s what he should be doing.” He agreed with her. “He didn’t even put his own name on the application, telling me that his sister was buying him this home. Do you know her? Her name is Rosie MacIntyre Malone. Any relation to you?”

“My wife.” She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t wait for her to digest that little bit of information. “The man is her brother, and he’s trying to get something from me that I’m not willing to go for. You call the man with the next highest bid and tell him that the house is his. Provided he can get his loan approved.”

“I’ll do that right now. The nerve of some people. He should be knocked around for getting me all worked up on that bid.” He said that he’d take care of him. “I should hope so, Mr. Malone. The man seemed to be a little on the shocked side when I told him what the beginning price was for the house. He kept saying that it was just a house. But he got over that soon enough.”

“I’ll make sure that he understands that what he did was fraudulent. Not to mention identity theft. I’ll also make sure that he knows that he’ll be in trouble the next time he does something like this. My wife will surely be upset that he used her information to apply for the right to bid.”

After getting off the phone with the realtor, he went to find Rose. She’d told him several times yesterday that Phillip was going to be trouble, and he, like a fool, decided that he could handle anything that he put his way.