Page 83 of Wicked Me
He dragged in a breath and stumbled onto the porch. I followed and started to close the door behind us when Paige caught my eye.
She held her hands out as if for answers and mouthed, “What the hell?”
I flicked up a single finger, the international sign forOne second. Let me deal with the rager on the front lawn.
With the door firmly closed, I faced my brother head-on. Dirt smudged his polo shirt and khakis as if he’d dragged himself through a thousand sandboxes to get here.
“I quit working for Hill,” I said. “I’m done being blackmailed.”
“Why?” he asked, voice raspy, yet much calmer, like he’d just swallowed a chainsaw dipped in a humiliating little brother beat-down. “How was that your decision to make? My career is over.”
“I don’t know, Riley. Maybe you should’ve been the drug dealer with guns aimed at your head if you cared about your career so much. Or, here’s an idea—you and Dad keep your dicks in your pants for once and don’t get blackmailed in the first place.”
“The press has names, surveillance tapes. All ofme. Just me. It’s all over the goddamn news.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, searched for something on it, and shoved the screen in my face. All I saw was the glare of the bright morning sun.
I snatched it away from him and squinted at a message.
S comes back or daddy gets it next.
“I don’t know what you did to Hill to piss him off, but you have to go back,” Riley warned.
I had done little more than fuck up nearly everything I did for Hill, and he wanted me back? Was Rose’s debt that important to him that it get paid off even when the “employee” was the opposite of a natural-born drug dealer? Like it had from the very beginning, something seemed off about all this. Especially since there was no debt.
“Think about Mom, Sam, and all those years she stood by Dad’s side, about all the hard work they’ve done so he could be president of the fucking United States of America.” Riley took steps toward me, his face pained. “Think about Rose.”
I shrugged away from his reaching arm. “She’s why I’m doing this. Not you. Not Dad.Rose.”
“Then why did you quit?”
“Because there is no debt.”
Riley blinked then looked at me like he didn’t know who I was. “Yes, there is.”
“Rose texted last night and said there isn’t.”
“I went to see her yesterday, told her everything, and she didn’t say a goddamn thing about there not being any debt,” Riley said, his voice rising.
“Keep your voice down.” I ticked my gaze to the front door and then tracked it back across the green grass toward my bare feet. “You went to see her?”
“It just happened... I didn’t plan it.” He raked his fingers through his hair and held to the back of his head as if to keep it together.
He went to see her, but she texted me. Why not tell Riley?
His shoulders slumped as he sighed. “I still don’t get why you quit.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets and looked around our quiet neighborhood. Birds chirped. A neighbor’s garage door opened across the street. Regular, everyday events. That was what I wanted. With Paige.
“I’m tired of lying,” I said.
Riley shook his head. “You live in the wrong fucking city to hide behind that excuse.”
“Then I’ll move. Maybe you never noticed, but I’m not like you or Dad or Mom. I don’t want the same things. Never did.”
“That’s right. You want to be some low-life loser mechanic guy who no one remembers when you die.”
“I’m done, Riley,” I said, gesturing to his car as a signal I hoped his power-warped mind could understand. “Why don’t you go cry to Dad like you always do, maybe read some articles on the internet about how not to be a shitty person? I’ll bet some of them have small words even you can understand.”
Riley’s mouth flattened into a thin line, and red flooded everything between his temples once again. He stalked toward his car like I’d just stolen his favorite Transformer toy. “You’re a selfish prick, Sam. How can you do this to me, your own family, and be completely okay with it?”
