At sixteen, I’d stopped coming home from boarding school during the holidays—something in which she was none too happy about paying for because, and I quote, I was ‘too damn expensive to keep alive.’
I’d always held my tongue instead of telling her that she was lucking out on me being in boarding school, because if I was home with her I’d cost her more money.
At least that way, I’d been in a school uniform all day, she didn’t have to buy me food, and she could pretend that I didn’t exist.
That had all changed when I’d graduated high school and had moved back home with Six, my childhood friend.
Then, not only had my life gotten harder, but my aunt had gotten wayyyy meaner.
So the animosity present this day had been compiling for years.
The last straw had been when she’d informed me that my father’s estate wasn’t meant to pay for petty things like advanced educations. Yet, it could pay for her to get her nails done, and her hair highlighted.
Needless to say, I was really fucking excited about presenting her with this paperwork.
“You may live here until six months after my birthday, which is when it’ll be going on the market to sell,” I said. “And, though this is all in the paperwork, I’ll give you the highlights version. If you wish to buy it, that’s fine, but not a penny of my parents’ estate will be touched. You have been removed from all accounts except one, in which a monthly stipend of a thousand dollars will be transferred. After six months, you will no longer get that. All furniture, knick-knacks, and every item down to every single spoon, has been accounted for. It is listed, item by item. Even the belongings in your room. You may take everything that is yours that my parents didn’t buy. And I’ll be generous and allow you to have your clothes. At six months, you’re either out of here on your own, or I call the cops and you’re out of here not on your own. Your choice.”
My aunt’s face was purple.
Literally purple.
She was so fucking mad.
I stood up and walked to the door. “I’ll be seeing you around. Don’t do anything stupid.”
With that, I left the house that I hated almost as much as my aunt and headed to my beat-up car.
A car that I’d had to purchase on my own.
A car that, sadly, needed a new… something. Probably everything.
However, instead of buying something new, I’d left it the way it was. Maybe I should have bought a newer car, because I knew that shit was about to get ugly.
My aunt was about to use all the money that she’d squirreled away from me, anticipating this day, and she was going to go at me with everything she had.
My accounts would be frozen, and anything that I’d bought with my parents’ accounts would be red-flagged as well.
Meaning that anything that wasn’t mine before this mess started likely would be put in limbo as well—at least that was what my lawyer had explained to me.
Something crinkled under my butt as I plopped down into my seat, and I licked my lips nervously.
Pulling out the paper I’d printed at the library, I stared at it with excitement thrumming in my veins.
Live-in property & pet caretaker needed. Four-year minimum. Background check required. Generous compensation. Marriage of convenience required.
I wasn’t exactly sure why this entire thing looked so… exciting to me. But the thought of having someone at my back, someone that may or may not protect me in the event that my aunt screwed me like I knew she was going to do, made me flitter with anticipation.
I had these feelings. These feelings of the wrongness or rightness of a situation.
I’d had them my entire life.
That was how I knew that the lawyer that I’d chosen—one of three—had been the right one, and the other two had been the wrong ones.
That was how I’d began to trust Six, my best friend.
That was how I’d avoided my aunt’s first and second attempted ‘hit’ on me, too.
Yes, you heard that correctly.
My aunt tried to have me murdered.
I didn’t have proof, no. But I knew, deep down in my heart, that she had.
I wasn’t dumb. Brand new brake lines didn’t just ‘go out.’
And people didn’t just ‘accidentally’ almost-stab you with a knife when you just so happen to turn twenty-five that day and your accounts are officially released to you.
Anyway, the feeling that I had when I read that ad? It hit me in a way that nothing ever had before.
That sense of rightness had only been associated with four people in my life.
My mom, my dad, my uncle Deighton, and my best friend, Six.
Nothing had ever felt ‘right’ like this in a long time.
And that was why I was meeting the man in an hour and a half.