Page 93 of Locked in Wonderland

“Did they treat you like a son until he came along?”

“I don’t remember.” Nico thought for a moment, as if questioning whether that was the truth. “I was three.”

Fair. “Kellan seems…” I stopped. It was a struggle to find a diplomatic description.

“Spoiled?” Nico suggested.

“Spoiled, right?” It seemed rather too generous given what I’d witnessed in the nightclub.

“He’s used to getting whatever he wants.”

“Even if what he wants is a person?”

Nico’s silence answered for him.

“What’s your relationship with him like?”

“We don’t really have one.”

“Hard to believe when you grew up together.”

“The Harts live in a big house. It’s easy enough to avoid someone.”

“He was probably too busy pulling the legs off spiders.” Nico’s expression never changed. “So one day you just stopped being a sort-of son and became an employee?”

Nico sighed. “I told you it was complicated.”

I thought back to the only time I’d seen him with the Harts. It had only been a matter of minutes, if that. He hadn’t struck me as family, but there was something about the way people spoke of him. Different from the reverence reserved for the Harts, yet close enough to it that the distinction blurred. Whatever Nico’s position was, it clearly placed him above the level of a normal employee.

I absently rubbed at the scar on my chest, thinking about the tattoo that had been there. “Do all employees get to mark people?”

“No.”

“Can all employees come and go whenever they please?”

A spark of amusement appeared. “I’m not a prisoner.”

“Then why stay?”

He frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“You said yourself that this place is twisted. Why would you want to be a part of that?”

The amusement died. Nico turned his head away, focusing on the wall as if it contained something worth studying.

Seconds passed.

Then more.

When he finally looked back at me, his expression had cooled.

“Do you know what your problem is?”

I shook my head.

“You see everything in black and white.”

“And you don’t?”