“I don’t understand,” Dylan said, frowning as she tried to make sense of what was happening. She just…
This shouldn’t be happening.
The city tried to condemn the house before, but they never had enough to do it. She’d already applied for permits, ready to fix everything and-
“You’re welcome,” Brooke said, making everything inside her go still as she slowly looked up to find her sister watching her with that same pitying look, but there was something else there, something that had her stomach turning.
“You called the city on me,” Dylan said hollowly, even as she prayed that she was wrong.
“I did you a favor,” Brooke said, shrugging it off as she pulled her phone out and began texting while she made her way around the house, letting Dylan know that she was already bored with this conversation.
“A favor? You just screwed me over,” Dylan said, following her as she made her way around the house.
“I saved you,” Brooke said, not bothering to look up from her phone.
“How exactly did you save me?” Dylan demanded, only to end up groaning when she saw the orange sign condemning the house taped to a boarded window.
“The house isn’t worth saving. It’s a complete gut job that would have bankrupted you in the end. Believe it or not, I did you a favor,” Brooke said, once again shrugging it off like she hadn’t just completely destroyed everything that Dylan had been working for.
“That wasn’t your call to make,” Dylan bit out as she followed her.
“It is when you expect me to invest B.T. Construction’s valuable resources, especially now that B.T. Construction isabout to be mine,” Brooke said dismissively as she scrolled through her phone.
“We had a deal,” Dylan reminded her.
“Look, I’ll give you fifty thousand dollars for the house to make this right,” Brooke said, shrugging it off as she finished typing something on her phone and shoved it into her purse.
“Fifty thousand? I paid two hundred thousand for it!”
“Then, you overpaid,” Brooke said dismissively as she looked pointedly at the house that had admittedly seen better days.
“The house is on five acres and has private access to a lake,” Dylan pointed out.
“Which is the only reason why I’m offering to take it off your hands. The cost of the demolition alone is going to bankrupt you,” Brooke said, facing her.
“I’m not tearing Blackwood Manor down,” Dylan bit out.
“Looks like you don’t have a choice,” Brooke said with a pointed look at the notice in her hand. “Let me take the property off your hands for fifty thousand and when the project is completed, I’ll give you a finder’s fee.”
“What project?” Dylan demanded, narrowing her eyes on her sister.
“Luxury condos,” Brooke said with a satisfied sigh as she gestured lazily towards the house and overgrown backyard.
“You want to sell Blackwood Manor to a condo developer?” Dylan asked slowly, shaking her head in disbelief because there was no way that her sister just screwed her over so that she could-
“No, B.T. Construction will be building them,” Brooke announced with a smirk that turned Dylan’s stomach.
“B.T. Construction doesn’t build condos. They build luxury homes,” Dylan reminded her.
“They will soon,” Brooke said smugly as dread slowly crawled up Dylan’s spine.
B.T. Construction specialized in building luxury homes. That’s what their employees had been trained to do. They didn’t have the specialized training required to build luxury condos, to deal with steel frames, elevators, or any of the specialized skills that they would need to know in order to pull this off.
They also didn’t have the equipment that they would need to build luxury condos, not to mention the time it would take to build them. They would need commercial contractors, structural engineers, men who could work cranes, and to invest every cent B.T. Construction had just to pull this off and even then, it might not be enough. They’d have to replace more than half their crew with men who had the certification and upgrade all of their trucks and equipment and hope that they broke even in ten years.
They-
“This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” Dylan said hollowly as she watched her sister closely, noting the gleam of excitement in her eyes as she took in the property almost as though she was already imagining what it would look like once the condos were built.
