by May Sage
House was an incorrect term. What they owned was a farm; a full on working agricultural farm, with a fair bit of land, currently rented by a decent guy who paid his bills on time. It wasn't very much, but with careful planning, it had been enough to cover their expenses; until now.
Fuck.
Fiona was in her first year of university – unlike Sibel, she'd been smart and chosen something useful: medicine. She had a bright future in front of her, damn it.
After her various grants, the cost of her education amounted to a mere eleven thousand a year – money that directly came from their rental. The rest, they'd divided equally between them. Since she'd finished Uni and taken on a job at the public library, Sibel had saved her share; Ben squandered his and Fiona paid for her room and board with the last third.
Damn it. Bel had twenty thousand – a fortune, as far as she was concerned – but that wasn't even a drop in the bucket.
There was exactly one way to bail Ben out.
"We have to sell the farm," Fiona concluded, voicing her thought.
A long silence ensued.
There was no point elaborating on the consequences: if they sold, they couldn't afford to pay for her tuition. Bel's savings might keep her there for a couple of years, but then, what? She'd still have to drop out before getting her degree.
"Dammit, dipshit: why the beast!"
"I didn't know whose account it was, alright! I just went in when I was connected to their servers, and I saw all of that cash stacked up in one fucking instant access account, ready for the taking. There were billions in there, damn it. I figured he wouldn't notice."
She only sighed.
Ben, admittedly, was a brilliant hacker, a decent poker player, but that didn't make him the sharpest tool in the box. There was a good chance that he may have been dropped on the head a few times too many.
That being said, he was still the best brother in the entire world.
Sibel was all too conscious of the way he'd stayed with them every night in the orphanage, adopting a "punch first, ask questions later" policy on every single male who approached their room. She also knew he could very well have let them rot where they had been, rather than becoming their legal guardian when he had still been a kid himself.
No amount of reckless stupidity would change that. Whatever the problem, they supported each other. Hell, if it came down to it, she'd go to the Beast herself for him.
It happened very suddenly after that idea was formulated. Her breathing quieted down, she stopped frowning and her entire body relaxed. Glancing at the contract signed by the unfittingly elegant hand of the Beast, she bit her lip, knowing what it all meant.
The only thing now was to ensure that Fiona and Ben didn't realize she'd made up her mind.
Sibel Thornton was in no way the self-sacrificing kind, but that rhetorical pledge had instantly morphed into a firm decision.
I am going to the beast.
The thing was, she was the middle child, and she'd gone along with that stigma her entire life. Fiona was nice and smart, Ben was crafty and charming – she was a little bit of both, in between, lost in the middle.
Unlike Ben, she had an education, but all she had to show for five years of studying literature and languages was a low income and an incomparable ability to sass in an educated verbiage when she got pissed off about it.
Fiona was so much more: she deserved the chance to become whatever she wanted to be.
Moreover, the Beast would call Ben, begging him to send her back within a week.
For one, there was a very slight chance that anyone might manage to tie her up to a wooden post. Ben could be considered a badass, compared to some, but please. He was an amuse-bouche. The first thing Bel had signed up to, when she'd been at leisure to do so, had been martial art classes; after years of constant practicing, she could kick major ass.
It hadn't been a hobby, but a necessity. She was pretty. Some called her beautiful. In Jereena, that meant that someone tried to rape her about once a week, minimum.
They never came out of the experience physically able to use their dicks on anyone else.
After planning an appointment with an estate agent first thing the next morning, they finished their drinks and parted ways, heading in different directions.
Bel embraced them both and while it was perhaps slightly out of character, they weren't complaining. Nor were they aware of her hand as it skillfully withdrew from Ben's pocket.
His contract clasped in her fist, she took the time to look at both of their figures while they retreated, and smiled.
There was nothing she wouldn't do for them. Nothing.
