Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“Did your uncle give you a hard time about it or did you keep it a secret?”
“I never kept secrets from Uncle Ray. I think I was too naïve. I figured if those ballet guys could wear makeup, then I could too. And the male models strutting colorful, sometimes even bizarre-looking clothing—that was normal too. They were so confident.”
“And those things made you feel confident,” I offered.
“Yes, but it was more than that. I felt like… me. I didn’t know that others didn’t see it the same way. A few beatdowns in school was all it took to educate me.” Jules let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if Uncle Ray hadn’t been there. He taught me the stuff I needed to know about life… the stuff I should have known about by then. It wasn’t even the business stuff. Uncle Ray was a good man and he proved it with everything he did. He took me with him to volunteer in shelters for the homeless, for teens who’d been rejected by their parents had no place to go, places that provided safe havens for women who were being abused by a partner or loved one. He didn’t just throw money at them and claim he was a philanthropist. He did donate money, but he was in the trenches as well.”
“He showed you the ugly side of life as well as the beautiful side.”
Jules nodded. “Funny thing was that the closer to Ray that I got, the closer Miles got to my father. It was like Miles and I had been switched at birth. Miles wanted power and money. He was at my father’s side when the business went public. My father sold thousands of his own shares in the business so he could rake in more and more money with the intent to buy even more properties. Uncle Ray didn’t.”
“So your uncle wasn’t really interested in the business,” I suggested.
“Actually, he was. God, that man was the smartest person I’d ever met. Even with all the charitable work he did, he knew everything about business, particularly the family business and what would happen once it went public. See, despite being brothers, he and my father weren’t close. They’d each inherited half the business from their father, but while my father was impulsive and focused on money no matter who got hurt along the way, Uncle Ray was more interested in the things that really mattered. He focused on the properties that he and my father had divvied up and made sure they were all in good condition. He didn’t kick out tenants just so he could tear a building down and rebuild it so he could sell off each unit at a higher price. He never forced people who owned small businesses next to or near one of his businesses to sell them to him so he could expand.”
I nodded because I knew where Jules was going. “He played it safe and focused on quality while your dad did the opposite.”
“Yep. And it served Uncle Ray well. I was too young to know it at the time, but when the housing market crashed, my father lost millions, maybe even billions of dollars. While he was scrambling to find new investors, Uncle Ray was quietly buying up shares in the business for pennies on the dollar. He’d saved up enough money to cover the losses caused by the crash and then some. By the time the market recovered, Uncle Ray owned two-thirds of the business, and not one of his tenants had been evicted from their homes because they couldn’t afford to pay their rent or mortgage.”
I smiled. “So by buying up more of the company he became the majority shareholder, which meant he had control of the business.”
Jules returned the smile. “Yep. My father did everything he could to get Uncle Ray to sell him back the shares that would once again make them even, but Uncle Ray said no. At one point, Miles was threatening his own father with shit like having him declared incompetent. None of it worked.”
“And when your uncle passed away…”
“He left everything he owned, including his stake in the business, to me,” Jules responded. He began blinking rapidly like he was trying to fight off tears. “I miss him so much, Flynn.”
“I know you do, baby. He sounds like an amazing man but more importantly, he was the father and mother that you needed him to be.”
“He was. He died a few months before I turned eighteen. It was a plane crash. He had his own little Cessna that he liked to fly whenever he had spare time. Something happened when he was landing it one day. The axle broke, causing the plane to flip several times. I don’t know if Ray was still alive when the whole thing caught fire. I have nightmares of him calling out to me but all I can do is stand there and listen to his screams—”