Her mother groaned, but her eyes remained closed.
Harper shook her, a new desperation weaving through her limbs. “Wake up! You need to tell me where you put my money!”
“You won’t get it back.”
She stopped and turned to look at her brother. He stood in the center of the room, arms crossed over his chest, smug smile still on his face. “What?”
“The money. Mom called the bank, asking for a loan. They turned her down…but they kindly reminded her of a joint account she had access to. Told her how much money was in it. She gave me a cut, of course. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest is already gone.”
No. That wasn’t possible. That was her house deposit. Her escape!
Slowly, she rose to her feet, a new rage filling her chest. “You let her do that to me?”
“Don’t know why you’re so upset. We’re family. What’s yours is mine, right?”
A black fury took over, and Harper ran forward, shoving her brother in the chest. “Haven’t you taken enough from me?”
Her brother stumbled back.
“Isn’t all the hatred you’ve shown me, the way you leech every bit of good from my life, enough?” Harper screamed.
She went to shove him again, but he grabbed her arm so tightly, she cried out. Then his fist flew forward, colliding with her cheek and sending her to the floor.
He towered over her. “You’ve always thought you’re so much fucking better than us. You’re not. It’s your fucking fault Dad went to prison! Your fault the neighbors heard you scream and the house was raided. Because of you, we’ve barely been getting by for years. We took what you owed us. And we’ll keep taking for as long as we damn well like!”
At his words, her rage shifted into something else. Something worse. A deep hopelessness.
It was never going to end. They’d keep taking and taking until she had nothing left…not even herself.
Ignoring the throbbing in her cheek, she rose to her feet and shoved past her brother into the hall. The world blurred around her as she ran through her childhood home.
Rain soaked her as she dashed to her car, but she barely felt it. The second she dropped behind the wheel, the panic expanded in her chest. Choking her. Drowning her.
It kept expanding until one word entered her head. Her only hope.
Run.
CHAPTER 18
“Harper? Harper, wake up.” The deep, familiar voice penetrated her sleep. Then a warm hand cupped her cheek. “Storm, honey, open your eyes.”
It took a few blinks for Cody to come into focus. He sat on the edge of the bed, shirtless, looking so worried she almost forgot everything her subconscious had just dredged up.
“Are you okay?” he asked gently.
Was she? She could still feel the impact of her brother’s fist on her cheek. Could still feel the devastating weight of her mother’s betrayal like an open wound.
“It was just a bad dream.”
A slight frown creased his brows. “Will you tell me about it?”
The idea made a new wave of fear fill her lungs. This man already knew snippets of the mess that was her life, but what happened when he knew all of it? The full worthlessness of her family?
“Could you pass me a shirt?” she asked quietly.
Silently, he reached into a drawer and pulled out one of his own. It drowned her, and even though it was clean, it still smelled of him. Woodsy and masculine.
She took a breath before starting. “That night I showed up here…I’d almost finished work when I got a text that my rent check had bounced. I called my bank and was told—” The sharpness returned to her chest, cutting off the words in her throat. But Cody’s hand covered her thigh, allowing a fraction of the pain to ease. “He told me that my mother’s name was still on the account—she was a cosigner, from when I was a teenager—and that she’d withdrawn everything.”
