Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 847(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
She and Reggie followed me into the kitchen. I surveyed the room, discovering mountains of cardboard boxes piled up in the pantry.
I swiveled to them. “You’re moving?”
“We can’t afford this house anymore, can we?” To prove her point, Reggie pushed past me and taped up a half-empty box with enough toxic energy to light up Vegas. “The HOA alone is eight hundred bucks a month.”
Tabby joined her, closing up boxes with barely anything in them. “We’re renting it out and moving to an apartment so we can afford groceries. Happy now?”
No, actually.
I didn’t take any pleasure in their misfortune. I only ever wanted them to stop screwing around with my life. Vera, on the other hand…
I snatched up a free box, stuffing it with my belongings. “Where’s your mother?”
While they had no right to kick me out of a home I owned, I didn’t trust them not to toss out my stuff.
“She’s not home,” Tabby lied at the exact same time Vera burst in from the garage, sweating in her skintight zebra-print bodysuit.
The fumes from her hair spray alone made me dizzy.
“Girls, you have to help me out here with the boxes—” Her words died in her throat the minute she spotted me. “What are you doing here, you little shit?”
Guess the gloves were officially off.
“Grabbing my stuff.” I flipped open the cabinet above the sink, fetching my favorite Mickey Mouse plate that Dad had kept because he knew I loved eating grilled cheese on it. “Oh, and delivering some news.”
“Let me guess—should I expect the sheriff here any time soon?” Vera folded her arms, eyes squinting at me like she was cocking a gun. “Because I obtained my own legal counse—”
“I know you killed him.”
The silence that followed soaked into the walls. Vera turned the same shade as her bodysuit. Tabby and Reggie glanced at each other, whisper-shouting nonsense.
Tabby scratched her temple. Reggie’s head reared back. Neither looked particularly in-the-know. The panic on their faces said it all.
They had no clue what Vera had done.
“W-what are you talking about?” Vera stormed to the sink, barely managing to fill up a glass with her shaking hands. “Killed who?”
“You’re so bad at this. Always were.” I moved toward the stairs with my box. “That’s why Dad sent me away. To spare me your so-called parenting.”
The three of them chased me up the steps.
“Your father was killed by a valet.” Vera stomped her heels on the hardwood, no doubt leaving dents. “I had nothing to do with it.”
“Other than paying said valet 200k for his troubles, you mean.” I swiveled, sending her a sweet smile in the hall. “Yeah, that’s not going to fly in a court of law.”
“You have no way of proving this nonsense.”
I zipped down the corridor to my room, swinging the door open, momentarily taken aback by what I saw.
“Where is everything?” I hated that my voice cracked.
Vera, Reggie, and Tabby filled the doorway like bouncers.
Not leaving me an inch to escape.
A satisfied smirk pulled at Tabby’s lips. “Oh, we thought it was all trash, so we threw it out.”
“Sorry, Fae.” Reggie examined her coffin-shaped nails. “There’s a difference between vintage and garbage.”
“Your stuff smells.” Tabby jerked a thumb behind her. “Like, all the way from across the hall. Bleach.” She shivered. “Made me gag.”
First-degree murder is a lifetime jail sentence, I reminded myself, edging away from them in case I did something stupid. Drop it to ten years, and I might weigh the pros and cons.
These vultures had left nothing.
Not even a speck of lint.
All of my memories—gone. The display full of fencing medals. The épées I’d competed with as a kid. The box of Broadway tickets I saved from trips to New York with Dad.
Gone, gone, gone.
In every version of revenge I’d conjured, I’d always intended to take only what Dad wanted me to have. I would never do anything like this to them.
Heat stormed up my cheeks, so hot I feared my head would combust on the spot.
“You have no proof.” Vera stepped past the doorframe, crowding me. “To these lies you’re spewing under my own roof.”
I met her in the middle, standing my ground. “My roof.”
Gloves off, indeed.
Without the threat of blackmail looming over my head, I no longer needed to roll over whenever she bullied me. I had truth on my side. And a spine as strong as the Lotte Tower.
Even with her heels on, I stared down my nose at her. “I own fifty-percent of this house.”
Dad had transferred his share of the deed to me as soon as I’d turned eighteen. His way of making me feel welcome.
This place is yours, just as much as it is theirs, baby girl.
Vera closed the gap between us, bumping me with her chest. Her mouth opened, but the front door crashed against the wall, interrupting her.