Page 112 of Wicked Promises (Fallen Royals 3)
I rub my eyes. “What happened?”
“M-my apartment was broken into.”
“Really.” I didn’t even know she had an apartment. I mean, I should’ve realized. It’s one of those things you don’t think about until you have to think about it. Obviously she was staying somewhere. I just never spared a thought for whether it was an apartment, a house, a hole in the wall…
“Can you come help me? You’re all I have—”
“What about Uncle David?” I can’t help but ask. She’s leaned on them pretty heavily over the years. I pull the phone away from my ear, checking the time. Not even five o’clock in the morning. The first floor of the house is completely silent.
I cross to the living room window, peering out. The sun is barely starting to rise.
There’s a car parked across the street, its headlights glowing, and it drives away fairly quickly. Weird. At least this one didn’t go screeching off into the night like the other night…
“Are you listening to me?” Mom asks.
“No.”
“I said, I need you to help. I don’t have anywhere to go. David is being horribly moody, what with his house guests, and I simply cannot fathom who else to ask.”
I tilt my head. “Wait, back up. House guests? Who?”
“Oh, never mind that. You know Aunt Iris is always trying to save people.” She scoffs. “It’d serve her better at the gates of Heaven if she served her own family—”
“Mother,” I snap. “Seriously?”
“Everything is gone,” she moans. “My jewelry, the money…”
“What, were you stockpiling cash or something?”
She’s quiet, and I feel my eyebrows lift almost of their own accord.
“You can’t be serious.”
“What? You can’t expect me to live like this forever. Like—”
Like someone who works. Who earns their paycheck instead of just sitting behind a desk and letting the money pile into their bank account.
With sudden clarity, I realize that I don’t want to follow in my father’s footsteps. I don’t want to sit behind a desk and order people around, or push paper, or—
“You’ve tuned out your poor mother again.”
I shake my head. “Listen, Mom. I’m seventeen. I can’t drive because of the concussion Uncle David gave me a week and a half ago. I don’t really know what you expect me to do before I have to be at school.”
“Forget it.”
Gladly.
“If you find my body tucked behind a dumpster, or beaten to death, or dismembered, or—”
“Why the hell are you talking like someone is going to murder you?”
“Because,” she whispers. “Someone is after our family, Caleb. Someone will always try to take what they can. And, oh, I’m afraid we’ve made some terrible mistakes in our lives.”
My stomach twists.
“Mom…?”
“Margo found out about Amberly, Caleb. She came into the diner, and I tried to get Amberly to leave, but she knew it was Margo out there. She—” She sucks in a ragged breath. “God, what am I doing?”