Chapter 18
“Something’s wrong.” Nate grabbed my elbow and pulled me into his room before I could react.
My mind instantly went to Leo and me at the pool earlier. And at the club the other night. Claire would have never told, so who ratted us out? Someone from our old school? Or maybe one of the older women on the block saw Leo picking me up?
“Look at this.” Nate shoved two pieces of paper in my hands. It took a moment for my vision to clear from my panicking. As soon as it did, I realized Nate wasn’t confronting me about his best friend.
“These are the last two months’ income and outcome reports,” I murmured, scanning through the lines.
“Something’s off,” he said. His voice sounded annoyed now. Not at me, at whatever was on the sheet.
“I didn’t do last month’s report,” I confessed as I slowed down my inspection to find what he was talking about. “Dad said he wanted to take it off my shoulders in case I was leaving in the fall…”
I blushed, a little embarrassed that I was no closer to making a decision about leaving now than I was at the beginning of the summer. My script still needed to go through some drastic edits. Claire’s notes helped a ton. Still, I seemed to be slowly working my way through the current draft. Writing felt like such a slog. Thankfully, my brother wasn’t focused on my personal growth journey at the moment.
“Look.” He finally pointed out the blunder.
The line his finger hovered over was the total of income from our commercial properties. I frowned when it matched the total from the previous month, down to the cent.
“Copy and paste error?” My excuse sounded weak.
Nate pointed out another mistake. This time, with how many private property homes we’d cut. “These fake suburb jobs copy and paste errors too?”
I chewed on my lip and shook my head. There was no denying it. The information was wrong, and all roads pointed to the obvious. I just wished it didn’t happen while Nate was here. Last time, he’d been at school and I handled it how I wanted to handle it. I was calm and understanding. There’d still been yelling on my parents’ part. Blame for something I hadn’t done, but we got through it and got the money to pay off all the bills around the house. That was what mattered. At least, I convinced myself things were fine.
“You don’t look surprised,” Nate noted and snatched the papers away from me. “Why?”
When I hesitated, he said, “This isn’t the first time the books aren’t adding up? Dad’s stolen before?”
I took a breath. “It’s not that simple-”
“And you’re defending him?” Nate’s voice raised. As soon as he saw me step back, he took a breath. “Kira, please, don’t tell me you let this slide before. You can’t let shit like this slide with them.”
“I took care of it last time,” I said, sounding defensive as I crossed my arms over my chest. “Everything worked out fine. The money was back in the proper place before anything serious happened.”
“Before anything serious happened?” Nate let out a humorless laugh. “It was serious the second he shaved something off the top. Now, he’s done it again and you’re in here kissing ass like they’re in the room with us. Why are you like this?”
My jaw tightened. “Like this? Like the person who keeps this house together? Like the girl who found the money to pay for your swim lessons along with our meals before they could waste it on lotto tickets and their next ‘business venture’ turned pyramid scheme?”
“You’re a doormat, Kira. You let them do whatever they want to you. That’s why you’re trapped here. Stop making excuses. Stop pretending like you’re doing us a favor.”
“I’m not making excuses.” I could feel my throat tightened. Surprisingly, there were no tears on the horizon. Only anger strangled me. Fury at how my brother was looking at me like I was someone to pity.
“No one asked you to do anything,” Nate said, his voice lower now. “You decided you wanted to be the one in control and they took advantage of you. You let them do that. I try to protect you, Kira, but I can’t do that forever. I don’t want to be here forever and I don’t think you do either.”
“I never asked for your protection.” I pressed my fingers against my closed eyes, trying to keep my voice steady. “I don’t want it. I can protect myself. I’m going to protect myself.”
“Kira, look,” Nate reached up and tried to pull my hands from my face. “I’m in your corner whether or not you like it. But I refuse to continue helping someone who enables people like them.”
I pulled my hands away. “What do you want me to do? Huh?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” I don’t think he understood how many strings I held onto in the background. This house and business were like a spider’s web. I stop spinning and the next gust of wind would end us in a heartbeat.
“Hell, yes.” He waved the papers around. “This is their problem.”
“We’re family. It’s ours.”
