Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
“Yep,” he clipped, expression hardening. “Those shithead, corporate bastards completely gutted our app—ruining everything we tried to do. Turning it into all that I fucking hate!”
His anger didn’t scare me. The opposite. It drew me closer to him. “But, then why?” Gently, I cupped his cheek. “Why did you sell?”
His jaw tensed against my touch. “Sue, believe me, you’ve never met a more dangerous enemy than a bunch of rich, soulless shitbags fighting to protect their money. GloryBoi was popular. Ten thousand times more popular than we were expecting, and it was costing all those app owners and casinos big,” he said. “Turns out, it’s not just the sons of gambling addicts that like the idea of betting big and winning big without losing their rent money. Pretty much everyone wants that.
“When the conglomerate first came at us with a buyout offer, we said no.” His eyes darkened. “And that was a mistake.”
“They came after you.” It wasn’t a question.
“They went after everyone. My mom, my dad, my grandparents, and my family,” he said, widening my eyes. “They went after Micah’s and Alex’s families. They went after our friends and girlfriends at the time. They sicced private investigators on us, digging up every dirty secret in our closets. And that was the stuff that was true.
“We also came under attack from a deluge of internet trolls and bots spreading nasty, sick stuff about us, and lies about the app. It was relentless,” he said. “Our girlfriends dumped us. Our parents begged us to just sell and make it stop. And then, it got even worse.”
“It got worse?” I blurted. “How could it have gotten worse?”
“Neither Micah, me, nor Alex are coders,” he said. “Creating GloryBoi itself was way beyond our capabilities, so we hired some kid from the computer engineering college. We gave him a flat fee of a quarter of a million dollars and a contract we printed off the internet, and he gave us everything we asked for.”
“The cuntglomerate targeted him next, didn’t they.”
Rhodes cracked the slightest grin. “Cuntglomerate? I like that. I’ve called them lots of choice shit over the years, and never came up with that gem. Nice.” His smile faded fast. “But to answer your question, yes. They pounced on Dereon fast. They claimed the contract he signed was nothing—worthless. Their lawyers would shred it in court, then Dereon would be named the true owner and creator of GloryBoi. And so, we had a choice. We either sold to them right there and took their generous offer of twenty billion, or we watched them steal our app and leave us with nothing.”
I hissed, lips peeling back from my teeth. A few choice phrases for those greedy corporate bastards were going through my head right then.
“We sold.”
My eyes fluttered closed—my lids as heavy as my heart. I could picture the three of them then. Only twenty years old, and terrified. Pressure bearing down on them from all sides. Threats coming at them from everywhere. When all they wanted to do was make the world a fairer place.
“I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry, baby.” Warm fingers brushed my lips, popping my eyes open. “Not about this. This one was all me,” he said softly. “I was the chickenshit bitch boy that let a few cunts in suits scare me into selling out. I was the one who had a billion people counting on me to provide a safe place to gamble... and I just gave it away.”
“Don’t say that,” I cried, eyes welling. “You weren’t any of those things, Rhodes. You were only twenty years old. Barely an adult. You weren’t even old enough to gamble on your own app!” That got a wry chuckle out of him. “You were put in a terrible position of having to choose between protecting your family and friends... and protecting your father.”
He swallowed hard, turning away, but somehow leaning firmer into my touch.
“Those shitheads never should’ve put you in that position, but they did, and you made the best choice you could. You have to know that.”
“What I know is I was the one who called up my dad, telling him to join GloryBoi. I told him that if he gambled on the app, and only the app, it could be his version of harm reduction, and eventually, when he saw that he could control his addiction, he’d see that he could beat it too.” His expression was blank—dead. “And I also know the name of the divorce attorney I drove my mother to meet after the cuntglomerate changed my app, and Dad gambled away all the money Mom had saved to throw Nana’s seventieth birthday party.
“All of that money,” he rasped. “He stole from her and spent it all... on GloryBoi.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t say it’s not my fault,” he sliced off. “Please.”