The Forgotten One (The Heirs #2)

Chapter One

The sound of a diamond saw blade unexpectedly coming to a screeching halt was not the way Max wanted to end his day. He released the lever and shouted out an obscenity that no one could hear over the construction noise vibrating all around him. Jackhammers, drills, a backhoe scooping up debris and loading it into a dump truck ... everything played like a well-tuned orchestra when things were going right.

But not when a costly blade hit a snag that would end its productive life.

Max yanked back on the blade while giving the saw power in hopes that it would come away from his cut freely.

It didn’t.

Two ... three more yanks and it slid from the cut.

One look at the blade and he knew it was toast. “Fuck!”

Frustration rippled through his shoulders as he dropped the saw to the ground and ran both hands through his hair.

He knew without looking he didn’t have a replacement on his work truck. The company he worked for didn’t keep spare two-thousand-dollar parts lying around.

The hum of his colleague’s saw faded out of the noise around him, and Jeff yelled, “What happened?”

Max pointed to the saw and then flipped the tool his middle finger.

The way Jeff’s shoulders slumped told Max he understood the problem.

Jeff powered down his saw and walked over.

For shits and giggles, Max opened a side door of his truck just to make sure the diamond-blade fairy hadn’t left a surprise inside. He knew searching was useless, but he did it anyway.

“That’s bad,” Jeff announced as he walked by the destroyed blade.

“No shit.”

“Sheri isn’t going to be happy.”

“No shit,” Max repeated. The boss never was when it came to replacing expensive equipment.

“What did it hit?”

“No idea.” Max flipped through the blades in his inventory one at a time. Nothing.

The beeping of an excavator backing up stopped, as did the sound of its engine. Max glanced at his watch and shoved the equipment door shut. It was four thirty, and workers were getting ready to quit for the day. He and Jeff had two, three days tops left on this job if everything ran smoothly.

Things weren’t.

“There might be a spare at the garage,” Jeff suggested.

“Even if there is, we need a bigger one. This obviously isn’t enough.”

He should probably be counting his blessings instead of cursing his luck. At least the unexpected shutdown happened at the end of his shift.

Max started the process of cleaning up.

He put the now-useless blade on the top of the pile and waited by his truck for Jeff to finish up.

Once the noise on the site had quieted enough for a phone call, he dialed the yard.

“Concrete Coring Express.”

“Hey, Beth. Is Sheri still there?”

“Yeah, hold on.”

A few seconds later Sheri picked up.

“What’s up?” was how she answered.

“We have a problem.”

“I’m more about the solutions, Max. You know that.” Sheri had inherited the company from her father and knew more about coring concrete than anyone in the field. She’d grown up riding shotgun with her dad and eventually went on jobs solo. After she married and started a family, she moved into the office and took over there.

“We need bigger blades,” he told her.

“What you have should work.”

“The thirty inch didn’t.”

Sheri slowed her response. “Define didn’t .”

Max told her what happened.

She was silent.

He waited.

“This is the second one in a month, Max.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. Whoever built this place thought it was a fallout shelter.”

“You sure you’re not pushing it?”

Probably. “I work by the hour, why would I do that?”

“We can’t keep doing this, Smith.”

“Give me a bigger blade and it will slice like butter.” Butter from the freezer, but it would work nonetheless.

Sheri muttered under her breath.

“This is the last one, Smith. The next one comes out of your check.”

“You know there is always a risk,” he told her, not happy with the threat of paying for the equipment.

“I also know you like to hustle.”

“Which makes you more money with back-to-back jobs.”

She paused. “See that it doesn’t happen again.”

Sheri might not charge him next time, but eventually she would. Hell, if he was the boss, he’d make an employee carry some of the risk.

Cutting through LA traffic back to the yard was a bitch. He said his goodbyes to Jeff, who rode in with him to save on the gas it took to run the massive work truck, and then he climbed onto the back of his motorcycle.

Santa Clarita was warm for a fall day. He could taste the threat of a Santa Ana wind on his lips. Wind that would make working outside an even greater pain than it normally was. Not to mention his commute from Palmdale to Santa Clarita on his motorcycle. He’d rather drive in the pissing rain that the news sensationalized as storms than the wind. While he could slice right through it on a bike, the other drivers on the road swerved in and out of their own lanes at random, making it harder for him to avoid a collision.

Max mentally prepped himself to get up earlier the next day and take his old truck to the yard if the wind started thrashing by morning.

Damn, he was tired.

Dirty, tired, and in need of a beer in the worst way.

He turned down the crappy street he lived on and pressed the remote for his garage door two houses away from his place.

The single-story tract home that looked exactly like the one next door was a rental. It was a piece of crap, but it was home.

He pulled into his garage and caught sight of three people jumping out of a truck parked across the street from the house.

One man, two women. One of them pregnant.

He avoided eye contact as he cut the engine of his bike and pulled the helmet from his head.

“Max Smith?”

Hearing his name snapped his gaze toward the man who’d spoken as Max swung off his bike.

The two women jogged up the drive and stopped.

The pregnant one offered a soft smile.

The drop-dead gorgeous brunette met his eyes head-on.

Max turned to the man and dismissed them. They looked like the kind of people that walked the neighborhood peddling Jesus or vacuums. Neither of which he was interested in. “I don’t want whatever you’re selling.”

The pregnant woman laughed and looked between the others. “Miss Abigale all over again.”

Max hesitated. That soft smile was replaced with amusement.

The name Abigale rang a distant memory he’d long forgotten.

“We’re not here to sell you anything,” the man said as he took a step closer.

Max didn’t buy it. He also didn’t like that they had his name. They reminded him of social workers ... only better dressed.

“Still not interested.” Max turned to walk away.

Then the words he never expected to hear in his life tumbled out of the man’s mouth. “We know who your father is.”

Max froze. The hair on his arms prickled, and his guard slammed up around him like an iron fence. What the hell kind of shit was this?

“I don’t have one of those.” His words were calculated and cold.

The soft smile returned to the pregnant woman’s face as she moved to the man’s side and placed a hand on his arm. “We know who your sperm donor is.”

Max clenched his jaw and drew on every skill he’d ever perfected to hide what he was feeling inside. He had no idea what kind of game these people were playing, but he didn’t want to be involved. If they did know who his father was, it was too fucking late to have anything to do with the man now. “Not interested in knowing him.”

“That’s a good thing,” the brunette told him with a snort. “He died in April.”

They were serious. Max opened and closed his eyes as he looked at each of them one at a time. The beat of his heart ramped up, and his breath came faster. Fight or flight. He clenched his fists and then shook them out. “Great. Thanks for stopping by and sharing the happy news.” He needed space.

“Don’t you want to know his name?” The brunette stepped forward.

Max swung around and took a few steps closer. He needed to get these people out of there ... fast. He knew his limit, and they had reached it. “Listen, lady. I don’t give two shits about the man who fucked my mother.” He stopped and looked at the pregnant woman’s belly. “No disrespect. So no, I don’t care who the hell he was. I’ve had a long day. I’m tired, I need a shower and a beer. You guys have something to say ... spit it out.”

The man held out a hand to stop the women from moving closer.

Smart guy.

The pregnant one didn’t seem to care and nudged forward anyway. Her words came in a rush. “Your mother’s name was Lisa Davis. You were born in Phoenix, Arizona, where you were cared for by a woman named Abigale until your mother abandoned you at the age of two.”

What. The. Fuck!

Max looked everywhere but into the faces staring at him.

His mother’s name flashed.

He’d been told she was dead.

Abandoned? The kids in foster care always tossed around the image of a kid being so unlovable that a parent left them on a doorstep. Always in an effort to be better than the poor little shit on the other bunk that sat in the same cesspool system they all did.

Max’s gaze twitched, and a small sense of maybe ... a maybe he’d refused to even consider since he was ten ... began to unfold. He literally felt the arms of a heavyset woman fold around him. “Abigale ... was she a Black woman?”

The brunette sighed. “Yes. Her house is filled with quilts and cookies.”

“She’s going to be happy that you remember her.”

Max looked between the women and ran his hand over his beard. “This is fucking with my head.”

The man stepped closer, his voice even and calm. “Take a good look at my face.”

Max did. They were similar in size, maybe off by an inch in Max’s favor. They had the same color eyes, same shape. Max saw his own jawline on the man ... at least when he wasn’t sporting a beard. Were they related? “Fuck,” Max said under his breath.

“I’m your half brother.”

Max’s nose flared; his fingers flexed. He swallowed ... hard.

The brunette moved closer to the man. “I’m your half sister.”

The man reached into his back pocket and handed Max a piece of paper.

Max couldn’t stop the tremble in his hands any more than he could his next breath.

The top of the paper had the words DNA Paternity Report .

Max’s eyes started to blur.

“The estate will need to confirm this is you. But ... there’s no reason to think it’s not.”

Max stared at the paper, ran a hand through his hair. What were they talking about? “Estate? What estate?”

Max lowered his hand and looked at the man claiming to be his half brother.

“Our father ... your father ... was Aaron Stone. Stone Enterprises ... Stone Hotels and Resorts. You know what that is?”

“Yeah.” The image of the hotel chain you’d have to be isolated on a deserted island to not recognize flashed in Max’s head.

Max huffed out a breath, waiting for one of them to drop the act.

Only they didn’t.

He looked at the paperwork again.

Father’s name . . . A. S.

Mother’s name . . . Lisa Davis.

Max felt the blood fall from his brain. His eyes moved from the two siblings and back to the paper.

Child’s name . . . Maximillian Smith.

That was him. But why Smith? If his father was Aaron Stone, why was Smith on the paperwork?

This can’t be right.

“Our father left his entire estate to his three children.”

The man pointed to the brunette. “One.”

His finger shifted to his own chest. “Two.”

That finger moved to Max. “Three.”

This was a joke.

A sick fucking joke.

Max all but shoved the paper in his hand into the man’s chest and squared off with him. “I don’t know who the fuck you are or who put you up to this, but you don’t want to mess with me.”

The man didn’t stand down.

“Chase. We should go,” the pregnant woman said.

Chase? That was his name. “You should listen to your lady.”

“Get back, Piper.”

“Screw this.” The brunette shoved her way between them and forced Max to back up.

He had no problem knocking back a man, but he’d never hit a woman and wasn’t about to now.

“We’re not up to anything.”

“Damn it, Alex!”

Chase tried to push her aside.

She tugged her arm out of his grasp.

“I’m your sister, and he’s your brother. We were just as shocked to learn about you as you are about us. Now put your testosterone in check and hear us out.”

“Screw you.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Incest isn’t my thing.”

“What did you say?” The woman had balls ... like, really big balls.

“Here, look at this.” Piper shoved a cell phone in front of him. “It’s Chase and Alex at your dad’s funeral.”

Max had two choices . . .

Smack the woman’s hand out of his face or look at the phone.

He glared.

“Don’t even think about it,” Chase threatened.

Max took the phone from Piper and read.

Heirs to Stone Enterprises

Aaron Stone’s lawyers confirmed today that Chase and Alexandrea Stone have in fact inherited the entirety of the late billionaire businessman’s estate.

He kept reading ... and reading.

“I don’t see anything in here about me.”

“The world doesn’t know about you,” Alex told him. “Only us and the lawyers.”

Chase glanced over his shoulder.

Max followed his gaze to see his asshole neighbor staring at them.

“Can we please take this discussion inside?” Chase asked.

Piper placed a hand on her protruding belly. “I really need to sit down.”

“If you guys are screwing with me ...”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Alex pushed past him and marched into his garage like she owned the place.

Max just stared as she disappeared inside.

Piper followed.

“What the . . .”

Chase plucked Piper’s phone out of Max’s hand. “Hear us out, Max. We’ve been looking for you since April. Give us an hour.”