His eyebrows lift. “Where’s what?”
“My money,” I say, each word like I’m biting it off. “The money I had saved.”
He closes the laptop with a lazy motion, like I’m an interruption, not a person. “How would I know anything about your money?”
I hold up the empty box. “It was in here and now it’s gone. I checked everywhere. So I’m going to ask you one more time, Alex. Where is it?”
He sits up, slow, like a predator stretching. “You mean the money you’ve been hiding? Thousands of fucking dollars that could have gone to helping fix up this place?”
“I wasn’t hiding it,” I snap. “It was mine. And I help out enough around here.”
He swings his feet to the floor and stands. Alex is taller than me by a lot, broad shoulders, that same dark hair Mom always said made him look like his dad. His expression is mild, but his eyes are bright with something ugly. “You live here,” he says. “You eat the food I buy. You use electricity. Water. Heat. You think all that’s free?”
My fingers dig into the cardboard. “I pay for my own stuff and half of the bills.”
He laughs once. Not amused. Just… cruel. “Oh, yeah? Those thrift store jeans and your little diner job are keeping the lights on? Keeping the roof from caving in?”
“You don’t even work half the time,” I shoot back before I can stop myself.
His face changes. Not a lot. Just a slight hardening around the mouth. “Watch your mouth.”
I hold his stare. My pulse is racing, but anger is a stronger drug than fear. “You took it. Admit it.”
He steps closer. “You shouldn’t have been keeping it from me in the first place.”
The sentence lands like a slap. I blink. “What?”
He shrugs, like we’re talking about borrowed sugar. “I found it.”
“You… found it.” My voice goes thin. “So you stole it.”
“I didn’t steal anything,” he says, and I swear he enjoys the way I flinch. “It’s this family’s money.”
“My parents left you the house,” I say, and the words taste like iron. “They didn’t leave you me. I am not a bill you get to pay and then resent.”
His eyes flick over me, slow and assessing, and my stomach turns. Lately, he looks at me like that more often. Like I’m something he owns. Like he’s decided the line between brother and something worse is just a suggestion.
He smiles again. “You’re living here rent free. You think you get to stash money away like you’re planning to leave me?”
“I was planning to leave,” I say, the truth spilling out because there’s no point pretending now.
For a beat, he looks almost surprised. Then his mouth twists like he’s pleased. “Cute.”
I step back. “Give it back.”
“No.”
I swallow hard. “Alex.”
He tilts his head. “If you don’t like it, Wren,” he says softly, “you can leave.”
The words are bait. He says them like he’s confident I can’t. Like he knows I have nowhere to go, like he knows I’ll break before he does.
My hands are shaking so badly the shoebox trembles. “You can’t do this.”
“I already did,” he says. “You want to play grown-up? Then do your part. Help support us. Be grateful I let you stay.”
I stare at him, and something inside me goes very still. Be grateful? Grateful that he took my money. Grateful that he lets me exist in a house that used to be home. Grateful that he’s been circling closer and closer, calling me pretty in that voice that makes my blood run cold. Grateful that he reminds me every day that I owe him. My chest tightens. I can’t breathe. Not because I’m weak. Because if I stay, I will disappear.
