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“Can I call her again soon?”
“We’ll see. Go get that cleaned up.”
With that, he walks out of my room and I’m left watching the door, confused by his motives, worried for my sister, not liking this new secret between Gregory and myself.16Sebastian“You’re chipper,” I say to Gregory as he digs into his second serving of pasta.
“I’m always chipper,” he says. “You’re the broody one. You should lighten up, brother.”
He’s normally about as chipper as Lucinda, and Helena is quieter than usual, studying my brother whenever he isn’t studying her. I can almost see the gears of her mind working.
“What did you do today, Helena?”
Gregory takes his last bite of food, lays his utensils diagonally across his plate and sits back, wiping his mouth and watching Helena.
“Just walked a little. Swam and read.”
“How’s your knee?” Gregory asks.
Helena flushes. “It’s fine.”
“What happened to your knee?” I ask.
“Nothing. I just fell and scraped it up. It looked worse than it was when you saw it,” she says, directing the last part at Greg.
“How’s your sister?” I ask.
Helena coughs, choking on the bite she was just swallowing, and drops her fork. She covers her mouth with her napkin.
When the coughing fit passes, she pushes her chair back to pick up the fork.
“Leave it,” I say.
She straightens as a girl comes to replace her fork with a new one.
I take my time swallowing my food. What did I expect from this test? Did I think she’d tell me? No. I didn’t. Maybe I hoped she would. But this is more than that.
I glance to my brother who’s watching her. I don’t like how he watches her, but I have to be careful and measured.
Helena’s waiting for my reaction. I chew on another bite of food before focusing my gaze on her.
“That call must have been a more pivotal part of your day than your walk. Did it slip your mind?”
She shifts her gaze to Gregory then back to me. “You knew?”
“I asked Gregory to give you the phone to make the call,” I answer her.
“Was it a test?” she asks.
I shrug a shoulder.
“Just for me or for him too?”
“Oh, it was for me too, Helena. Have no doubt,” Gregory says.
Helena pushes her chair back. Stands. “Well, then I guess I owe you a thanks.”
“Sit down.”
“I’m done. I don’t like being played with.”
She walks past my chair, but I grab hold of her wrist and push my chair back to tug her down onto my lap.
Gregory gets up, disappears inside for a moment, I assume to dismiss the staff. He returns and resumes his seat, smiling wide.
I keep Helena’s wrists in my hands behind her.
“When I say sit, you sit,” I tell her.
She doesn’t say anything back but squirms a little. She won’t be moving away, not until I allow it. She knows it, too. And I know in a fucked-up kind of way, she likes it. I wonder if there’s security in it for her. I wonder if she knows, maybe on a subconscious level, that she’s safe with me, even when I punish her.
“What did Amy have to say?” I ask at her neck.
Gregory crosses one ankle over his other knee and drinks the last of his wine. He gives Helena a wink.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were just being your brother’s errand boy?” she asks him.
I see him chafe at that.
“You didn’t ask,” he says through gritted teeth.
“What did Amy say?” I ask again. I’ll let them hash that other part out later. That was part of the point of this exercise, after all.
“My parents told her about the money. They enrolled her in school.”
“What else?”
“She’s leaving home. She won’t accept the money.”
“Why not?”
“Because she has integrity, Sebastian,” Helena snaps, turning her head just enough to see me from the corner of one eye. “Something that the Scafoni brothers lack. I don’t like being played with.”
“Then learn to be honest. Know that I know everything that happens here, whether you think I do or not. You won’t come between my brother and I.”
“It’s not my intention to. It never has been.”
But it’s happening. There’s already a small fissure between us that I fear is only the beginning.
I meet Gregory’s gaze and I know that in time, if we follow the rules, I’ll have to give her to him. She’ll belong to him.
The thought makes my insides burn and I need to manage this, and this is the only way.
Swapping her wrists into one of my hands, I draw the zipper of her dress down.
She makes a sound, a small whimper, but remains as she is as I slide one sleeve, then the other off her shoulders and to the crease of her elbows. I then do the same with the straps of her bra then unhook it, let it slip down to expose her breasts.
