Page 25 of Morsel

“Yes.”

“What did they want to talk about?”

His fingers inch closer to my pussy lips, to my clit.

“Craig knows about your dad’s adoption scheme. He wanted to threaten you about it.”

“Why?”

“He wants money.”

“Why?”

“He gambles,” I say honestly. “And he spends. A lot. He owes people.”

The wrong people.

This has always been my brother’s issue.

“How was he going to threaten me?”

“He wanted to go public,” I say. “He knows a reporter.”

“What the fuck?” Oscar says. He drops his hands, and I instantly crave his touch. “What reporter?”

“I don’t know,” I say quickly. “Really. I don’t. I just know that he said he was going to talk to her about doing an expose on your family unless you gave him what he wanted.”

“Shit,” Oscar says.

“I really don’t know anything else.”

“I know, Dolly.”

Suddenly, I want to help him, though. I shouldn’t.

“You could have Phoenix hack his phone,” I say.

“Phoenix isn’t a professional hacker,” he says.

“He knows people, though. Don’t you know people?”

“I don’t know how easy you think these things are, Dolly,” Oscar says. He drops into the chair, and he closes his eyes.

I want to move to him, to touch him. Before I can convince myself not to, I do. I slide across the floor, and I reach for him. My hand lands on his hair, and I pet it softly. He reaches for my wrist, and he holds.

“What are you doing?”

“I was comforting you.”

“Don’t do that, Dolly.” His voice is firm.

Because I’ve betrayed him.

Because I’ve hurt him.

Because I don’t actually get to love him.

12

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