Free Boss by Ashley John Page A

palms sweating but they were also shaking out of control. He clasped them together, hoping they would stop.
    “Your father,” he started, “he signed everything over to a third party before he died. His will, it’s just a piece of paper because there is nothing to give you. It’s void. He didn’t have any assets in his name when he died.”
    Tobias blurred out of focus, the shaking spreading to the rest of his body. Slamming his spine into the chair, he stared up at the ceiling, his eyes dancing around the delicate and ornate antique light fixture.
    “A third party?”
    “That’s all I know.”
    “There is no third party!”
    “I don’t know the details, Joshua. Like I was trying to tell you, he didn’t include me in any of this. He did it with another firm. They signed everything over and I got a letter saying that the will was no longer valid. I thought he had your blessing. I thought maybe you didn’t want his money.”
    He felt every penny of that money dripping through his fingers, like sand in an hourglass. He wanted to grab hold of it, to keep it where it was but he was already a year too late.
    “And Silverton Industries ? The tower?”
    “Everything,” Tobias dabbed his face again, “his entire estate went to the third party. The cars, the houses, the company and the money.”
    “This can’t be right,” he muttered, “you must have it wrong.”
    They sat in silence, the sound of Fleet Street ’s lunchtime traffic echoing around the corners of the room.
    “It’s already done,” Tobias put on his lawyer voice, “He did it when it was still his to give away. You’re not entitled to anything.”
    “He knew he was dying?”
    He tried to imagine his father on his deathbed but he still couldn’t summon the memory of his face. All he could imagine was a feeling and it was a feeling of failure. For a split second, a smug and defiant smirk cracked his head in two.
    “He had a few months to sort things,” Tobias nodded, “but after the cancer took hold, it was pretty quick. He went in his sleep, and -,”
    “Cancer?” Joshua mumbled, expecting the tears to start.
    “Prostate,” he said, “it’s no way to go. It got my brother, so I know what you’re going through.”
    Joshua couldn’t hear Tobias. Joshua wanted to go to his father’s house in Holland Park but he wouldn’t be there. He didn’t even know where he was. Was he in a grave somewhere, smirking to himself? Was he on the fireplace of the ‘ third party ’, living out his days in a marble urn? He imagined it to be a woman in her twenties or thirties with big tits, fake hair and hunger for riches in her eyes. Had she seduced the old man in his final days, showing him enough kindness and cleavage that he signed on the dotted line, giving her an unearned fortune?
    “There must be a loophole,” he planted his hands on the thick wooden desk, “You’re Tobias Cole! You know every trick in the book. C’mon, give me something to work with here!”
    He knew he was begging but that couldn’t be it. He wanted to see an explanation, or a way out but he couldn’t see anything. He was clutching at straws and none of them were long enough to hold him.
    “It’s all legit,” Tobias softened his voice, “it’s out of my hands. I assumed the letter was a final goodbye but maybe it’s an explanation from your father.”
    Tobias nodded to the letter, as if urging Joshua to open it to give them both answers but Joshua couldn’t even look at it. He didn’t want to hear any excuses from a feeble old man on his deathbed. He knew it would be filled with the poison and bitterness Joshua had come to expect since his mother’s death.
    “I don’t want to hear it,” he pushed the letter away from him, putting it back in Tobias’ court, “shred it. I have less than £11,000 in my trust fund and after that I’ll be broke.”
    “Do you want my free legal advice?” Tobias smiled softly, “Use that money to get yourself a place, pay the