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“What’s this, Morgan?”
I chewed my lip. “I can explain….”
“Did you find another kitten in a dumpster or something?”
“No. It’s not a kitten. You know how I told you about Miso….”
The top of the box had a large hole where Miso had chewed right through the cardboard.
“There’s a weasel in my bed, isn’t there?”
Trying not to cringe, and trying to sound chipper, I said, “Surprise.”
It came out pretty weak.
“You’re going to have to fix this quick,” Layana said. “Stella will be home in twenty minutes.”
If Stella or Chloe found out I’d brought home another animal, I could lose my place in this apartment. The space was tiny. It smelled like motor oil and ranch dressing. The water came out cloudy and sometimes even with chunks of rust. But it was all I had.
“I’ll fix it. I swear.” A knot formed in my stomach. “Tell me you’ll help.”
“Of course I will,” Layana said. “But you have to promise—no more strays.”
I agreed, of course. And as I climbed under the bed and reached my hand up into the freshly chewed hole in the mattress, I hoped Miso didn’t have rabies.
THREE
OSCAR
The Carrington estate was an alabaster monstrosity atop a hill of lush green. The manor was decorated in the broad white columns of a Greek temple. Any beauty the building may have held was as shallow as the dye used to keep the grass green. Scratch away the surface, and nothing but decay and broken promises remained.
Standing beside my half-brother Jasper on the doorstep, I stared up at the gaudy facade of what had been my father’s mansion. Hot, stagnant air loomed. A thunderstorm was brewing, and I had no means to escape.
Now that my father was dead, this opulent waste of his fortune belonged to my other half-brother Sebastian. As I had every time we’d arrived at our will-mandated biweekly visit over the past two months since our father’s death, I seriously debated if these gatherings were worth the chunk of my father’s empire I’d inherited.
Jasper elbowed me in the ribs. “Try and pretend you’renota surly killjoy.”
His too-long hair brushed over his shoulders as he twisted his neck in my direction. His mane matched his easy going surfer vibe, as did his hoodie and shorts. He grinned, his nose wrinkling, trying to make light of the situation.
“Tell me what you really think. Don’t hold back this time,” I told him in a flat tone. Would I rather relax and play nice? Sure. But we were visitingSebastian.Every interaction, every single thing about him, felt like plucking my nose hairs.
Jasper’s smile slowly fell as he took in my expression. He clapped my shoulder. “I know you think he’s spoiled, and he is. But if you can look past that, he’s really not that bad.”
I raised a brow in challenge.
Why was it that being spoiled was supposed to be a tolerable trait for a person when in any other context being spoiled absolutely meant being discarded?If you can look past the fact that the milk’s spoiled, ignore the sour stink and force yourself to swallow the lumpy chunks of snotty curd, there are still a few nutrients in there.
“What happened to your face?” Jasper asked.
A beautiful and unstable woman assaulted me with a woodland creature.
Before I could determine how to respond, the door opened and Josephine greeted us with a smile and a tray of what appeared to be finger sandwiches. She still wore the same uniform she had under my father’s reign: a long black dress that covered her from chin to ankle, in line with puritan modesty. Her round face was soft and kind, and her long gray hair was perfectly slicked into a low bun. She looked exactly the same as she always had.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said with the tilt of her chin. “Master Carrington awaits you in his study.”
Pluck.There went another figurative nose hair. I knew Sebastian forced her to call himMaster,but that didn’t make hearing it any less frustrating. Not to mention, all three of us were Carringtons.
We stepped into the grand foyer, a cavernous space decorated in marble and various portraits of our father’s third and final family.
