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“You know that we’re not going to let anything happen to her, right?”
His back straightened as he gave me a tight nod. “I do.”
“As long as you know,” I finished before heading out of the church.
The second that my feet hit the sidewalk, I pulled my phone out, and there were seven missed calls from Banks, and six text notifications. I cursed under my breath as I made my way to my white Koenigsegg Regera.
I called Banks back, and he answered on the first ring. “It’s about fucking time.”
A lot of people said that I had the patience of a saint, and for the most part, I did. I wasn’t big on flying off the handle. I preferred having shit work out in my favor, and patience played a big part in making that happen. I knew my road to becoming a powerful political player was going to take some time, and I was prepared for that.
However, dealing with my brother had a way of testing that patience I was so proud of. “Are you serious?” I snapped. “It’s past one in the morning, Banks. Why would you think that I’d be awake to answer your phone call any-damn-way?”
“Well, you’re answering it, aren’t you?” he tossed back, and I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath.
“What do you want, Banks?” I finally asked. “What is so goddamn important that you’re calling me at this time of the night?”
“I need some money,” he answered shamelessly.
It was always money.
“Then get a fucking job,” I replied. “How many times are we going to go over this?”
“I do have a job, asshole,” he sniffed. “It doesn’t pay me enough.”
Banks was supposedly working as a nightclub host, and from what he’s told me about it, the pay should be enough to pay his bills. Especially, considering that he shared an apartment with a roommate. So, if he needed money, it was because he was partying and spending his paychecks on dick and drugs.
“You said it did,” I reminded him. “The last time we spoke, you told me that you’d found a great job that paid you plenty. So, what’s changed?”
Banks was silent for a bit, more than likely hating that I remembered that part of our conversation and regretting that he’d ever told me that detail. Finally, he said, “I went over my budget this month.”
“Your budget, Banks? Really?” I deadpanned.
“I just need a couple of thousand,” he said, ignoring my sarcasm. “It’s not like you don’t have it, Ross.”
The way he said a couple of thousand burned my gut. He said it as if it was an insignificant amount of money, and it wasn’t. Sure, my family had billions, what with my mother’s inheritance, but that didn’t mean I didn’t know the value of a dollar. I had more money than any twenty-one-year-old student should have, but that didn’t mean I was a dick about it.
I debated not giving it to him, but I didn’t need him distracting me from all the shit that was going on right now. “I’ll send it over,” I told him. “But after that, I need you to handle your own shit, Banks. You know I got a lot of stuff going on right now.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he replied flippantly. “The Order and everything.” I could hear the resentment loud and clear. “Mom and Dad must be so proud.”
I hung up on the entitled asshole.
I didn’t need this shit.
Chapter 2
Sutton~
While wildly exciting, I still found it hard to believe that I was already into my senior year at Hales University. College life has been everything that I thought it would be, and I was hoping my senior year was going to be more of the same.
Even though I was only twenty-one, I knew this was my last year to be young. I knew this was my last year to be carefree and still engage in some poor choices before guilt and responsibility took over. While I knew that a lot of people felt it was okay to still flounder in your early twenties, I didn’t want that for myself. I didn’t come to college to still not have a plan for my life.
Being raised by my grandparents, a lot of old-fashion values had been instilled in me at a very young age, and responsibility had been one of them. My grandfather, Thomas Hadley, had been a pediatric doctor, and my grandmother, Natalie Hadley, had been a physical therapist before they had retired last year. With important and respectable jobs, they had been a shining example of success, responsibility, and security. Even before they’d been saddled with raising me, they had already started a college fund for me. As their only grandchild to their only daughter, they’d been eager to prepare for me financially.
While my story was a depressing one, I’d been too young to feel the loss of my parents. The story goes that my mother had married a wonderful man, and they’d had the perfect marriage, by all accounts. However, unbeknownst to my grandparents and…well, everyone, my father had been an abuser. He had been fond of beating my mother, and before she’d had the chance to push back her shame and ask for help, my father had killed her, though accidentally.
According to my grandparents and the news articles, they’d been fighting, and my father had struck her, causing her to crash against the kitchen counter. Her head had hit the edge of the counter exactly where it had needed to in order to end her life. It hadn’t been until the autopsy and review of the body that it’d been discovered that my father had beaten her regularly.
