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Fucking asshole.
“You’re just like him, aren’t you? Do this and I’ll give you that. Get an A and I won’t lock you up in your room anymore. Behave and you won’t get punched in your ribs. Fall in line and I’ll take you to the doctor for that broken arm I gave you.”
I watch my brother flinch. “Look, you need this. You need the money, don’t you? You must. I’m not sure how you’ve been managing but you need the money.”
I have to laugh at this.
A loud, angry laugh.
“Dad cut me off two years ago, big brother. Nice of you to think of me now.”
When I said our father took legal measures to keep me away from the manor, this is what I meant. He kicked me out of his will and specifically had a clause that said I could never set foot on any of his properties. And while this is a secret to most people, he had to seek help from his lawyers, some top company officials and my brother.
“Reign —”
“But I already have a job.”
“What job?”
“None of your fucking business.”
If my brother thought that I’ve been starving all this time without our father’s money, then he really doesn’t know shit about me.
I’m nothing but resourceful.
My college tuition is already covered by my scholarship. I always knew my dad would never pay for my education, and that he’d find a way to look like a martyr by blaming me for it. Which would’ve been fine; I really don’t care.
Not for college or soccer.
I’m not like Lucas. I’m not interested in making a career out of soccer. The only reason I went was because he was going there. And I accidentally got a scholarship too, to the same college. So I thought why the fuck not. If it got me out of this hellhole town, which was the only thing that I’ve ever cared about, then I was all for it.
As for the rest of my shit, I do have a job.
I fight.
For money.
The gym that I was about to go into, before being waylaid by my brother, isn’t only a boxing gym; they also organize amateur fights. Mostly, they are legal and all the fighters are paid well. Some fights, however, are not and the fighters are paid obscenely well for those.
So well that I only have to work over the summer and I’m set for the rest of the year.
Basically, this is like my summer job, has been for the last two years.
“I know I haven’t been there for you,” my brother begins because he doesn’t know when to quit. “I’veneverbeen there for you. In fact, I was happy. I admit that. When Dad cut you off, I thought you deserved it. After all the years of crap you put us through, your partying, your drinking, your drugs. All the times you’d get arrested or expelled or all the times people would simply quit on you. And then, when everything happened with that girl, the Adlers… Instead of blaming her, I blamed you. I thought that it must’ve been you. Because it’s always you, isn’t it? You’re the problem. You do things. You wreck things. You ruin them. And so I thought you must’ve done something to her; you must’ve pushed her into doing what she did. I thought after all that cutting you off, disowning you was the least Dad could’ve done and…” He shakes his head, grimacing. “I failed you. I fucking failed you, Reign. I wasn’t a good big brother. I wasn’t… But I —”
“No.”
“But —”
“You were right.”
He frowns. “About what?”
“To think that,” I tell him, my hands fisted at my sides. “To think that it was me.”
Because it was.
I was responsible for it. For pushing her into doing what she did.
