Once I was dressed in my jeans, I headed downstairs while scrolling through the fifty or so messages on my phone. Most were from Riley in all capital letters, words I knew he didn’t learn from prep school, and smeared red with anger. The rest were from Hill. But the only one I focused on for more than a second was Rose’s:
There is no debt.
It still smelled faintly of dinner and smoke in the kitchen, which made my stomach turn. I knew what I had to do today, but it terrified me. So much so that I didn’t immediately register a car door slamming out front. Soon after, the front door burst open.
Because I could smell the raging shit storm before I saw it, I rounded the corner into the entryway with unhurried steps. “Please tell me you brought pizza.”
A fist slammed into my eye. Pain exploded up my skull. I reeled backward into the leather couch in the living room.
“How could you, you fucking piece of shit!” Riley shouted.
Through the rush of stars streaking past my vision, my gaze caught on the fallen lamp that Paige and I had knocked over during our wild night. I grinned, which probably wasn’t the best thing to do in the very red face of my attacking brother.
Another hook smashed into my eye, the same one that was almost healed from the last time someone punched me in the face. God damn it.
“Okay. I get it,” I yelled. Blood dribbled from my mouth down my chin to my chest.
“No you fucking don’t, you asshole,” Riley bellowed. “I was fired today because you took a giant shit on our family. How could you do that to Mom? To Rose?” He raked his fingers through his hair, his eyes glassy and wide as if he still couldn’t believe whatever he raved on about.
Though I had a pretty good guess as to what. Hill had leaked some information about Riley, probably to the press, because I’d quit being his dealer whore.
Footsteps sounded from the hallway stairs, and soon Paige rounded into the living room. Her mouth fell open as she took in the scene in front of her—Riley vibrating with anger so much that his eyeballs wobbled, me bleeding all over myself, the wide-open door Riley had hurtled himself through.
“Riley,” she started, her voice accusing. “What did you do to Sam?”
Shit. Now wasn’t the greatest time for her to show any interest in me. A glance at Riley proved it. Somehow he’d gone redder and looked like he was about to blow.
“What did I do?” he shouted. “Me?”
Oh, that fucking fuck. I charged at him, pushing him up against the living room wall, my forearm pressed against his windpipe, my face inches away from his so he would be sure to understand me. “Don’t you yell at Paige, you hear me? This is between you and me, got it?”
He struggled against me, so I pressed harder until some of the color leaked out of his face. It would serve him right if he passed out, but I might’ve stopped before that happened. Probably not, though.
“Sam, stop,” Paige begged and tried to pull me off him. “What has gotten into you two?”
Eventually, Riley’s body stilled. He gave a faint nod as if he was done having his little tantrum.
I immediately released him and pushed him toward the front door. “Outside.”
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 for One 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 of me. 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?”
I followed him, neither agreeing or disagreeing, and shut the door once he climbed inside.
“I’m not going to say sorry. But I do have something else to say...” I started like it was an afterthought, even though it really, really wasn’t. “I’m fucking Paige.”
24
Sam
ANNND NOW I WAS SPORTING two black eyes. Funny, I thought telling Riley about Paige and me would help put his mind at ease that someone was actually looking out for her. Kidding. No I didn’t. But this whole truth-telling thing was getting kind of painful.
I sucked in a breath as Paige swabbed rubbing alcohol on the cuts all o
ver my face.
“Quit being a baby,” she warned.
We were crowded in the downstairs bathroom, me sitting on the sink, her between my legs. The ends of her hair tickled my chest, her nearness distracting me from the sharp stings she inflicted with her steady hand. I could think of a couple things I’d rather be doing right then, but this wasn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been.
“So you’re not going to tell me why Riley blew up like that?” she said.
“He got fired today and started swinging at the first person he saw.” I shrugged as if that was both the beginning and the end of the story.
“He got fired? Why?”
“If you turn on the news today, you might see some things that don’t put the best slant on my big brother.”
She threw away the bloodied swab and leaned back to look at me, a question in her eyes.
“He likes to fuck whores,” I said.
Her mouth popped open. “Riley?”
“The one and only.”
“But...” She shook her head. “He was...”
“A boy scout, top of his class, your childhood friend.” I took her hand and pulled her closer. “I know.”
Her mouth pinched together with a wince, and a flash of guilt swept through my gut. Maybe I shouldn’t have been quite so blunt with her with the whole fucking whores thing.
“I don’t know who he is anymore. He’s a complete stranger, and I...I hate that,” she said, absently scratching her fingers over my chest. “What happened to him?”
“Power.” I squeezed her hand on my chest and tried to put everything else out of my head for now. “Power happened to him. He got a taste of it through Dad, and even more when Dad decided to run for president.” I scooted off the countertop to share the same small space as her. “Which is why I need to go.”
She looked up at me, her dark eyes concerned. “Where?”
“To put out some fires. I’ll be back before you know it. Go grocery shopping if you want. But please,” I said, trailing a finger down the bridge of her glasses to smooth the worried line underneath. “Don’t forget the bacon.”
She snorted and shook her head. “You need an intervention. Okay fine, I’ll go do the woman’s work while you go do the man stuff only because I’m starving.”
“Women’s work.” I dipped my head for just a taste of my sweet magnet in the soft curve of her neck. “It’s the grocery store. It’s not like you’re barefoot and pregnant.”
Her whole body stiffened. She slid away from me with an empty expression. “I’ll go now.”
Obviously I’d struck a nerve to make her shut off like that. I scrubbed a hand down my chin and stared after her as she left the bathroom. Was it because I’d said the p word?
“I was kidding,” I said, following after her.
She slung her purse over her arm and fluffed her hair around its strap. “I know.”
“I didn’t know we had a safe word.”
She screwed up her face at me over her shoulder. “What?”
“You know, a safe word. A word people use when they want to stop a...uh... sexual partner from going too far. I said pregnant and you immediately shut down.”
“So...I was going too far?”
“I’m only twenty, babe.” I winked. “I can only take so much of all the delicious things you have to offer.”
A smirk tilted those sinful lips. “You’re a rotten liar.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
“I shut down, as you call it, because I’m hungry,” she continued. “I was unaware we had a safe word as well, but I don’t think pregnant should be it.”
“Okay. Fair enough,” I said, striding toward her. “So what should our safe word be in case one of us goes too far?”
She paused by the front door. “Apocalypse?”
I chuckled. “Well, that would definitely put an end to pretty much everything, I suppose. Apocalypse it is.”
“Behave yourself today, Sam,” she said. “No more fighting.”
“What fun is that?”
She gave me one last warning look before slipping outside. Then she immediately changed her mind and came back, squeezing and releasing the strap on her purse in quick succession, with a determined lift to her chin.
“Pregnant,” she blurted. “I was once. I had the baby, and I put it...her up for adoption.” Her mouth wavered as if there was more she wanted to say, but she snapped it shut so tight the tendons in her neck strained.
A million thoughts flooded my head. Before I could stop it, a single word grinded out. “Rick.”
She looked at me for a long time with a haunted look in her eyes I never wanted to see again. Finally, she nodded.
A strange noise came from the back of my throat. “Did he rape you?”
“No. I was...” She swallowed and started again. “I was young and stupid.”
I blinked down at the few tile squares between us that hours ago we’d fucked on, doing my best to wrap my under-caffeinated, bruised head around this. She obviously blamed herself, but it took two to the deed. Rick was a fucking asshole who should have known better.
Paige had a baby. With Rick. Did it change anything?
She stood still and silent, likely waiting for some kind of reaction. Because it mattered to her. I mattered to her, otherwise why would she tell me something so personal when it obviously upset her to talk about it?
“There’s more,” she whispered, then swallowed hard. “He’s been blackmailing me with pictures of...of our time together in exchange for information about you.”
“Me?” What the fuck?
“Your whole family,” she corrected. “Especially Rose, and I...I told him she’s in Pasadena, Maryland at the drug rehabilitation center and I’m so, so sorry about all of this.” Her shoulders sagged, dropping her purse to the floor, but she acted like she didn’t notice anything else except me and the obvious guilt that weighed heavy on top of her. “When he wanted more info, I told him to fuck off.”
Whoa. If the guy wanted dirt on my family, there was certainly a lot more than the location of Rose’s drug rehab. Even if we weren’t being blackmailed by Hill, there was a chance Rick, and everyone else, could have found out about everything. Not by Paige, but still. On top of being a sex predator, Rick had also blackmailed her. Jesus, did the guy have a decent bone in his sick, perverted head?
“He’s the one who cost you the Library of Congress job?” I asked. When she nodded, I had the sudden urge to go all Dexter on his ass, but I kept that need in my tightened fists for another day. The fucker would pay, that was for sure.
Blowing out a breath, I stepped toward her and held her tight. She clung to me while I kissed the top of her head. None of this changed a damn thing. Holding her felt like coming home, like we were meant to happen. I pulled away to cup her face and kiss her, pouring whatever she needed from me into her to chase away her heartache.
Minutes—hours?—later, she leaned her head back, her lips swollen, her eyes hooded. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I kissed her again, a quick, innocent one, and pushed her cute hipster glasses up her nose. “It’s okay.”
She nodded down at her purse and swiped a hand across her cheek, and I hoped she knew I meant it. It was okay. It really didn’t change a thing about how I felt. Or what needed to happen next.
“I’ll go get the bacon,” she said and slid me a quick smile.
When she closed the door behind her, I leaned my forehead against it while the silence in the house pressed in. She took her natural energy with her every morning. It made the house feel empty. Lifeless.
I usually left soon after she did on the weekdays, but since it was Saturday, I procrastinated. Yeah, I wanted to see my sister again, but our last visit about two months ago had shaken me. Instead of the zombie shell my sister used to be before she’d entered treatment, she’d been angry. Like the kind of angry that possesses your soul and makes you do and say ugly, terrible things. About Mom and Dad.
Even about me and Riley. The doctors said she was still detoxing and that her “irritability” was part of the process. Irritability, my ass. My sister had turned into a demon.
But soon enough, I parked in the guest section of the sprawling treatment center in Pasadena, Maryland and got out of the car, my sunglasses once again covering the bruises on my face.
The website for this place described it as upscale and private, two words that had leaped out at my parents immediately since those were the most important things to them, not what was best for my sister. Maybe today I’d find out for sure that money really could buy happiness, at least for Rose. For her, I hoped so.
Tall, spiraled bushes and various flowers lined the parking lot and trailed along a winding sidewalk that led to the front doors. Four white marble columns flanked the sides of the building and held up a third-story balcony where heads bobbed behind a low iron fence. On either side of the columns, separate wings stretched into the distance, the left for females and the right for males.
Air conditioning blasted my face once I entered the glass doors, and I breathed it in deeply. The sharp odor of chemicals burned my nose because some guy was mopping the black and white checked tile in the corner. He swept the mop back and forth over the same spot. I had to wonder if that was some kind of punishment. Probably not since this was the twenty-first century, but how much research did his family do on this place before dropping him off for someone else to solve his problem? Maybe I had it all wrong—I hoped I did—but how much did anyone really know about what happened here behind closed doors? Or right out in the open like the man who kept mopping the corner?
Worry buried deep inside my gut as I stepped toward the receptionist’s desk near the middle of the large room. To say I hated coming here was an understatement, but today I hated the thought of not coming even more. If Rose had been exorcised since our last visit, I might ask her how many other times Riley had been to see her. And Mom and Dad. I wanted her to know she still had family. That we hadn’t forgotten about her. But I had a horrible feeling that maybe some of us had.
“I’m here to see Rose Cleary,” I said before the receptionist looked up.
Wicked Me Page 21
