The dust from Julian's car settled on the gravel. The silence that followed was worse than the shouting. Silas stood alone in the driveway. He watched the screen door of the main house slam shut behind June. He felt the cold weight of the ruined check at his feet. He had won the battle with Julian, but the victory felt like ashes.
He spent the next hour working in the north grove. He didn't want to think. He focused on the physical strain. He hauled heavy bags of fertilizer until his shoulders burned. He cleared irrigation ditches until his fingernails were caked with black mud. He was trying to outrun the look in June's eyes.
He heard a truck approaching. He expected it to be Miller. Instead, a white sedan with a county seal on the door pulled up. A man in a tan uniform stepped out. He held a clipboard and a stack of legal notices. He looked around the orchard with a frown.
"Are you the owner?" the man asked.
"I am the husband," Silas said. He wiped his hands on a rag. "How can I help you?"
"I'm with the County Clerk's office," the man said. He handed Silas a bright orange document. "This is a Notice of Intent to Foreclose. There is a discrepancy in the property tax filings from five years ago. It looks like a large portion of the back acreage was never properly assessed. The back taxes and interest now exceed the value of the land."
Silas felt a cold pit in his stomach. "Five years ago? June has been paying the taxes every year. I have seen the records."
"She paid the taxes on the primary lot," the man said. "But the orchard expansion into the north grove was never updated in the system. Someone filed a challenge to the deed last week. They pointed out the error. The county has to collect. You have forty-eight hours to pay the balance or the land goes to public auction."
Silas looked at the total on the bottom of the page. It was three hundred thousand dollars. It was a drop in the bucket for Vane-Corp, but it was an impossible sum for a struggling orchard. He realized exactly what had happened. Julian hadn't just come to offer a bribe. He had come to scout the battlefield. He had found a hole in the paperwork and poked it.
"Who filed the challenge?" Silas asked.
The man shrugged. "An anonymous legal entity based in New York. They call themselves Thorne Holdings."
Silas felt a surge of pure, cold fury. Julian wasn't just trying to buy the code. He was trying to burn the orchard to the ground to force June's hand. He was trying to make her so desperate that she would sign anything just to keep her mother from being homeless.
The man got back in his car and drove away. Silas stood there with the orange paper in his hand. He knew he couldn't go to June with this. Not yet. She already thought he was a liar. If he told her the orchard was being stolen by his business partner, she would never believe he wasn't involved.
He walked to the main house. He found Bea in the kitchen. She was peeling potatoes. She didn't look up when he entered.
"Where is June?" Silas asked.
"She went to the creek," Bea said. Her voice was tired. "She needed to be away from the smell of your city friend's perfume. What do you want now, Silas?"
Silas laid the orange paper on the table. Bea stopped peeling. She read the notice slowly. Her face went pale. She sank into a chair. Her hands were shaking.
"Three hundred thousand," she whispered. "We don't have three thousand. We spent the last of the savings on the pump repair. They're going to take it, aren't they?"
"No," Silas said. He sat across from her. He took her wrinkled hand. "They are not going to take it. I am going to fix this."
"How?" Bea asked. She looked at him with a mixture of hope and doubt. "You said you were staying here for the harvest. You said you weren't using your money."
"This isn't about the harvest anymore," Silas said. "This is a direct attack. Julian did this. He found a mistake in the deed and he's using it as a weapon. I have to go to the county office. I have to settle this before June finds out."
"She's already found out," a voice said from the doorway.
June was standing there. Her boots were wet from the creek. Her hair was messy. She looked at the paper on the table. She didn't cry. She didn't scream. She walked over and picked up the notice. She read it once, then twice.
"Thorne Holdings," she said quietly. She looked at Silas. "Your partner."
"June, I didn't know," Silas said. He stood up. "I swear to you. I would never do this."
"But he did it because of you," June said. She tossed the paper back onto the table. "He wouldn't even know this orchard existed if you hadn't come back. You brought the plague to my door, Silas. And now you're offering to be the cure with your billions. Is that the plan? Make me lose everything so I have to beg you for help?"
"No," Silas shouted. "I don't want you to beg. I want to protect you. Julian is a snake. I spent ten years working with him and I never saw how deep it went. But I am seeing it now."
"It doesn't matter," June said. She leaned against the counter. She looked defeated. "The bank won't give us a loan with a foreclosure notice pending. Miller can't help with this kind of money. We're done, Silas. You get your signature. I'll sign the papers today. Just pay the county and let us keep the house. You can have the code. You can have the merger. Just leave us alone."
"I'm not taking the signature like that," Silas said.
"Why not?" June asked. She finally let a tear fall. "It's what you wanted. You wanted the empire. Here it is. It only cost me my family's legacy. That's a bargain for a man like you."
Silas felt a sharp pain in his chest. It hurt more than the bruise on his jaw. He realized that words wouldn't work anymore. He had to act.
"I'll be back," Silas said.
He walked out of the house. He didn't go to the cottage. He got into his SUV. He drove to the county office in town. He walked through the doors with the same energy he used to walk into a hostile takeover. He found the tax assessor.
"I want to pay the balance on the Ashby property," Silas said. He pulled out a black credit card.
The clerk looked at the card. He looked at Silas. "I'm sorry, sir. The file has been flagged for a manual review. Thorne Holdings filed a secondary claim stating the land was improperly surveyed. We can't accept payment until the hearing on Monday."
"Monday is too late," Silas said. "The auction is in forty-eight hours."
"That is the law," the clerk said.
Silas walked out of the office. He leaned against his car. He looked at the quiet street of Oakhaven. He realized he couldn't win this with money. Julian had blocked the financial exit. He had to win it with the truth.
He drove to Miller's veterinary clinic. Miller was out front, loading a crate of medicine into his truck. He saw Silas and his jaw tightened.
"I don't have time for you, Vane," Miller said.
"Julian is stealing the orchard," Silas said.
Miller stopped. He looked at Silas. "What are you talking about?"
Silas explained the tax discrepancy. He explained the challenge to the deed. He told him about Thorne Holdings. Miller's face turned a deep shade of red. He slammed his truck door.
"That son of a bitch," Miller said. "June has been working herself to death for this place."
"I need the original surveys," Silas said. "The ones from before I left. I know they exist. June's father kept everything in the barn loft. But the county says they were never filed. I need someone who knows the land to help me find the old boundary markers. If we can prove the survey was filed but lost by the county, the tax claim is invalid."
Miller looked at Silas for a long time. He was looking for a trick. He saw the desperation in Silas's eyes. He saw the mud on his hands.
"Get in the truck," Miller said.
They spent the next six hours in the woods behind the north grove. They waded through briars. They climbed over fallen logs. Silas followed Miller's lead. They were looking for the old iron stakes that marked the original 1950s survey.
The sun began to set. The woods turned into a maze of shadows. Silas was exhausted. His clothes were torn. He felt like he was failing.
"Here," Miller shouted.
Silas ran over. Miller was kneeling by a large oak tree. He was digging into the dirt at the base of the trunk. He pulled out a rusted iron rod. It was marked with a specific serial number.
"This is it," Miller said. "This proves the boundary was established fifty years ago. If the county missed it, that's their error, not June's. The tax assessment would be based on the original filing."
They drove back to the orchard. Silas went straight to the barn loft. He spent hours digging through old boxes of dusty papers. He found the original blue folders. He found the receipt from the county office dated ten years ago. It had a stamp on it. It had been filed. The county had lost the digital record during a system update, but the paper trail was right here.
He walked to the main house. It was midnight. The lights were still on. June and Bea were sitting at the table. They looked like they hadn't moved.
Silas laid the blue folder on the table. He laid the rusted iron stake next to it.
"It's over," Silas said. "The survey was filed. The error is theirs. I have the proof. Miller and I found the markers. You don't owe three hundred thousand dollars, June. You owe nothing."
June looked at the folder. She looked at the iron rod. She looked at Silas. He was covered in scratches. He smelled like the woods. He looked like he had been through a war.
"You did this with Miller?" she asked.
"He knew where to look," Silas said. "I just did the digging."
Bea stood up. She walked over to Silas. She looked at the scratches on his face. She reached out and patted his shoulder. She didn't say anything, but she didn't glare. She walked out of the room to give them space.
June stood up. she walked to the window. She looked out at the dark orchard.
"Why did you do it, Silas?" she asked. "You could have just paid the money and been the hero. You could have forced me to sign. Why go into the woods?"
"Because you said I was a liar," Silas said. "And I realized that if I just paid it with my money, I would be proving you right. I would be buying your life again. I didn't want to buy it. I wanted to earn it."
June turned around. The anger was gone. The fear was gone. There was something new in its place. It was a soft, fragile curiosity.
"Julian is going to be furious," she said.
"Julian is irrelevant," Silas said. "I'm calling the board tomorrow. I'm firing him. I don't care about the vote. I don't care about the merger. If they want to remove me, let them. I'd rather be a farmer in Oakhaven than a king in a world where men like Julian Thorne run the show."
June stepped toward him. She stopped a few inches away. She reached out and touched the iron stake.
"You really mean that," she said.
"I do," Silas said.
The silence in the kitchen wasn't heavy anymore. It was light. It was full of the smell of the coming rain and the possibility of a new beginning. Silas Vane had come to the orchard to save his company. He had ended up saving his soul.