My Name is Joseph

Revenge and Cruelty Part 1

"Dad believes him?" William sputtered, gazing up with wide eyes at Josh who was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. His perpetual annoyance not shaded as it would have been if their father was in the room.

"Took it as some kind of sign from God that he deserves the company and estates." Josh answered, clenching his jaw.

Liam rolled his eyes and settled farther back into the couch where several of them were sitting, then crossing his arms as Josh had, "When did they leave for church?"

Oliver glanced up from his phone, which he seemed to be using to attempt to block out their misfortune--more accurately, the injustice forced on them, "They should be back by now, Liam, it's already 2:30." His irritation could be plainly seen as soon as he turned back to his phone; the jerky movements he was using to scroll were clear and forceful.

Ryder entered the living area with a humph, shoving Josh out of the doorframe. He slouched onto the couch and nearly spilled the coffee that was clenched in his hand in the process. 

"What do you think of this latest development, Ryder?" Josh sneered. All of the brothers had looked up and were watching Ryder after his dramatic entrance. He had not shown so much open disgust at Joseph and their father in a long time. 

Ryder grunted, "He has gone too far this time."

A gleam entered Josh's eyes and he watched Ryder steadily, "I mean, us saluting him? And him in a suit and us in rags? Does he plan on throwing us out?" He slowly walked over to a chair that had been dragged in at some unknown time in the past to make room for all the brothers--except Joseph, of course. He slowly sat down, keeping his calculating look glued on Ryder's face, "Something really does need done now." 

Ryder merely stared down at the coffee in his clenched hands and said nothing.

Johnnie, who had been half-listening the whole time, being occupied with whatever it was Oliver was looking at on his phone, leaned forward and away from his distraction at Josh's cold words, "We really should do something." 

Josh glanced at Ryder again, maintaining his cool, calculating demeanor, "What if we got rid of him," he paused, "Got rid of him and make it impossible for the dream to come true."

Ryder glanced up, irritated, "and how would you go about doing that?" This time he jerked enough that he did spill some of his coffee. He yelped, then scowled and started muttering under his breath before looking up at Josh with annoyance written all over his features.

A smirk slowly appeared on Josh's face as he thought, stalling for as long as possible, hoping Ryder's ire would continue growing with each second, "You know what we could do?"

"What?!" Ryder burst, then slammed his coffee onto the side table after spilling some more on himself.

"We could send him into the army."

Ryder merely rolled his eyes and muttered even more irritably to himself. 

Johnnie, however, looked at Josh sardonically, "Uhh, you do know that the person has to be willing to enter the army. We could never get away with that." He leaned back against the couch to once again glance over Oliver's shoulder at his phone.

Josh rolled his eyes, "I know that, idiot. We would just need to do a little convincing."

Liam looked up before slowly leaning forward and grabbing Ryder's coffee for himself, a calculating gleam to rival Josh's appearing in his eyes, "What do you mean by that?"

"Beat him up, blackmail him, threaten to kill him, I don't know! It's not that hard." Josh's hard voice brought all the heads in the room snapping towards him. No one was distracted any more. Oliver even turned off his phone and set it down, looking half-shocked.