“Greyson.” Dad snaps his fingers at me.
Of all things.
I can’t fake my way through this anymore.
“Fuck off, Dad.”
Wow. That felt better than I thought it would.
“Fuck you and your pretentious ideology, and fuck the way you think you can bully the woman in my life.” I hold out my hand to Violet, and she practically leaps forward. As soon as her palm connects with mine, a weight lifts off my shoulder. I pull her into my side and wrap my arm around her shoulder.
I throw the folder down at his feet. “And fuck this inflated bullshit you have going on here,” I add. “You can’t just meddle in my life like this anymore. I’m done.”
Silence.
My father laughs.
Laughs.
My face gets hot. My body flushes. I’m so fucking sick of him, I can barely see straight.
“Grey,” Violet whispers. “It’s not worth it.”
I grimace… and then I notice my father’s expression. He doesn’t like to lose control—and he’s lost control of the most important thing:me. And the room. Violet’s mother has resumed pacing, casting glances at us like we’re about to start fist fighting. She keeps gnawing at her fingernails, too. Violet’s hand slips under the hem of my shirt, pressing against the small of my back. She’s grounding me.
I look down at her, and my resolve hardens.
She’smine. Not something to be manipulated by my father. Not a pawn or a toy or leverage.
When Dad’s laughter has subsided, the mirth falls from his expression. His tolerance for disobedience is low at best. Something tells me that I should’ve held out longer. That he still has a trump card to play.
And sure enough, he seems smug when he says, “This girl you’re championing has been stealing from our family for months.”
47
VIOLET
Stealing from our family for months.
That’s why we’re here, right? Because my mother’s been getting paid by Senator Devereux, and she’s developed a drug addiction, and it’s on me. It’s my fault that the payments have stopped and her way of life is disrupted.
Her flightiness makes sense now. I can fill in a million motives for her absence, for the way she hasn’t returned my calls. The loneliness I felt, theabandonment. Maybe she’s always been addicted to something, and the opioids just provided another level of escape for her. But at the end of the day, she stopped talking to me because of the drugs.
No other reason is necessary.
I haven’t been stealing from the senator. That’s a nice little twist on an ugly truth: that he’s been giving her the cash to get high. And who knows what she moved onto after my prescription ran out. Who knows what sort of people she’s been with, and in what sort of situations… drug dealers aren’t exactly known to be safe people.
I hate that for her. I really do.
And the guilt follows me a second later, because now I’m left to wonder if I should’ve seen the signs. Could I have prevented this?
How, though? With no idea that she went behind my back to get my medical bills paid for, and then took it a step further to blackmail the Devereuxes. I thought insurance took care of my hospital expenses and that she had a job she liked.
And Grey? Does he believe this? Because right now, the senator is painting a picture for his son, and I’m the villain. I’m the leech, the gold digger. The one who wanted payback on their family and continually lashed out.
His father would like that, wouldn’t he? Just to have everything neat in a bow.
Maybe I should just cut and run now.