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I called in sick to Big Daddy’s and the gas station, and Erin took me to a nice coffee shop near downtown, where she treated me to a latte and a freshly baked cinnamon roll. We spent the next several hours going over various forms and discussing what would happen next, and she answered all of my questions—except one.
She refused to tell me who had hired her.
I pushed hard too, even threatening to walk away, to refuse her services unless she told me. But she just sat back placidly in her seat with her hands folded on the table in front of her until I eventually caved. I could see why she was such a good lawyer. And she was—one of the best probate attorneys in the country, working out of a firm in New York. Her mysterious client had paid for her to come to Sand Valley and represent me.
Every time I thought about that, I felt a little sick.
Maybe I should’ve just felt grateful, should’ve taken this change of fortune and accepted it at face value. But just like when I’d been invited to live at my grandparents’ house, I could practically feel the strings attached to this favor.
Nothing in life came free, and if I wasn’t paying for Erin’s services myself, I was sure I’d pay for them some other way, some other time.
But the petite lawyer had been right when she’d called my bluff. As terrified as I might be of what dark corners those strings disappeared into, I couldn’t walk away from this opportunity.
I supposed I could just play the waiting game. Wait until I turned eighteen and was officially old enough to live on my own and leave foster care. Wait until I turned twenty-one and could gain access to my trust. But I couldn’t stand the thought of that, especially not when there was even a fraction of a chance that what Erin proposed could work.
The Princes had thrown me back in the gutter where they thought I belonged, and now a hand had been extended, offering to help me climb back out.
If that hand belonged to the devil himself, I’d still take it.
“I don’t want to tell you to quit your jobs until the ink is dry and you’ve got your money,” Erin said as she tapped a stack of papers into a perfect rectangle before slipping them back into her briefcase. “But I will need you to be available, sometimes at short notice.”
“I’ll ask for some time off,” I murmured. We both stood from the table, and I gulped down the last of my latte.
“Good.” She smiled. “With any luck, that time off can become permanent.”
She drove me back to Mina’s house, and I ignored my foster mom’s heavy glare as I walked upstairs to my room and shut the door.
For the next two weeks, my life became a blur of meetings and phone calls with Erin, court dates, and paperwork. I had to go speak in front of a judge twice—once in regard to the emancipation, and once about the trust. Both times, Erin provided me with a wardrobe that made me look like I was auditioning for the role of Jackie Kennedy.
The judge who heard my case for early release of the trust fund was a large man with a round face and little tufts of hair around a gleaming bald spot at the crown of his head. He nodded almost continuously as I gave the speech Erin had helped me prepare. Then I stepped back, letting her take over the argument.
When she finished laying out my case, he pursed his lips, reaching up to scratch his chin.
“I don’t think there’s justification for a full release of the fund. But money can certainly be allocated for education.” He glanced down at the papers in front of him. “You were a student at Oak Park Preparatory Academy in Roseland, California, is that right?”
My heart stuttered in my chest at the sound of that name, but I kept my face impassive, smoothing down my skirt. “Yes, sir.”
“Very well.” He nodded decisively. “As long as you agree to finish your schooling there, I can approve the release of a portion of your trust early. You can continue your education and graduate from Oak Park.”
Chapter 3
The world outside the tiny airplane window was a canvas of blue and white.
Maybe it should’ve been soothing, but when I reached down to tug my backpack out from under the seat in front of mine, my hands shook. My chest felt compressed, my ribs too small to contain my lungs and heart between them. Mina hadn’t been happy to see me go, and right up until the moment I’d stepped on the plane, I’d been tempted to change my mind. To tell Erin and the judge to fuck off, that there was no way in hell I’d ever go back to Oak Park.
The petite powerhouse of a lawyer had handled my admissions too, speaking to Dean Levy on my behalf and arranging for my readmission to the school. Part of me had hoped after having seen the video the Princes had played in front of half the school, the dean would refuse to allow me to come back. But if he had tried to go down that road, Erin must’ve talked him out of it.
I was pretty sure none of that was included in her usual job description, and it made me wonder all over again who was paying her, and how much.
The anxiety churning in my stomach ramped up a notch as I considered the possibilities, so I forced that unanswerable question out of my mind and tugged the worn stack of papers from my backpack. I’d bought a little, black leather-bound journal too, and a small flash drive to store digital files on. Releasing the tray from the seatback in front of me, I started the process of transcribing my notes.
The truth was, even as my stomach had dropped into a bottomless pit when the judge had pronounced the terms of my trust fund release, a little thrill of something like victory had gone through me too.
I didn’t want to go back.
I never wanted to see the Princes’ beautiful, cruel, too-perfect faces again.
But I would never be able to hurt them from a distance the way they deserved to be hurt. I needed to get close to slip the knife blade between their ribs.
