Emery: Gahhh, no. I have something with work.
Emery: I’ll figure out another ride. Don’t worry about it. Hope you’re giving them hell in Durham, Reed.
I set my phone down when a wrapped lump fell to the desk in front of me. A sandwich. The label read Tuccino’s, the overpriced delicatessen a block over that catered to women of the Range Rover-driving, toy poodle-holding, flawless-credit-history variety.
Nash stood in front of me, that perma-bored expression glued to his face, staring at me like he expected a thank you.
I didn’t touch it.
Didn’t thank him.
Didn’t do anything but stare at him, face blank, a half-smile on my lips that I knew would taunt him.
In reality, I was flexing the hell out of my stomach, praying it wouldn’t growl at the scent of what smelled like pastrami on rye.
Holy crap, I wanted that sandwich.
I also wanted to not be poisoned sometime this century, and I trusted Nash Prescott like I trusted the phrase, “just the tip.”
“Eat the fucking sandwich, Emery. You look like ninety-nine percent of your weight is in your tits, and a half-starved preteen under my employment is bad PR.”
My fingers pried open the wrapper, holding eye contact with him and loathing that smug expression. I took a slow bite of the sandwich, chewing with an open mouth before I spit it at his foot.
The second it left my mouth, I regretted it.
One, I was hungry. Real hungry. The type of hungry where it felt like my stomach was trying to eat itself.
Second, wasting food made me feel like a shit person. Everyone I knew at the soup kitchen would kill for this sandwich, but my pride never let me back down.
Funny that Nash’s mom had been the one to tell me that pride changed angels to devils, and here I sat in front of her devilish son, turning into something that reminded me too much of him.
Nash ground his teeth together, his jaw so ticked, I couldn’t help but notice how defined it was. I had it in me to feel bad about wasting the food, but not about spitting it at his foot. He treated me like dirt, second only to Basil Berkshire.
I would not cower in front of him.
Not be his charity case.
Not walk into whatever trap he thought he was setting.
I. Would. Not. Lose.
“Thank you for the sandwich, Mister Prescott.” With a smile on my face, I took care in wrapping the sandwich up so the paper covered every inch and tossing it into the trash. “I enjoyed it very much.”
I’d enjoy it more if you’d bend me over this table and make me scream or turn around and leave. My grin never wavered. Take your pick, asshole.
Nash was wordless as he pivoted and left. As soon as I was sure he was gone, I fished the sandwich out of the trashcan, unwrapped it as carefully as I could, and scarfed it down my mouth in five giant bites.
I would rather choke to death swallowing this sandwich than swallowing my pride.
According to Greek mythology, King Sisyphus betrayed Zeus. In return, Zeus ordered Death to chain Sisyphus in the underworld. Sisyphus asked Death to demonstrate how the chains worked, then seized the opportunity to trap Death in the chains.
When he was caught, Sisyphus’ punishment was to roll a boulder until it reached the top of a steep hill. Zeus had enchanted the boulder to always roll away from Sisyphus before he reached the top. That condemned Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration.
The moral of the story—no one is above penance.
Even kings can’t escape punishment.
Sisyphus’ eternal punishment is also why pointless, difficult, or impossible tasks are described as Sisyphean.
I imagined Sisyphus carrying a boulder in front of me, like I often did when I needed to remind myself penance required delivering. That I would be trapped in this Sisyphean task for life, and even when I accomplished it, I would always suffer knowing I could have prevented all this.
My penance was to deliver punishment to those involved in the Winthrop Scandal.
Gideon Winthrop for embezzling money.
Balthazar Van Doren for co-owning Winthrop Textiles and helping Gideon.
Virginia Winthrop, Eric Cartwright, and Emery Winthrop for knowing or worse—being involved.
The second Dad died, retaliation fueled my nights, turning dreams into revenge fantasies and plotting into an obsession. The first nail in the head would be Gideon. He had been the ringleader, the main owner of the company, so he would be the first domino to topple.
I planned to acquire access to his fortune, then sit in front of him as he watched it bleed dry, knowing the son of a gardener had brought his deliverance. And like a sudden windstorm, he would never see it coming.
The others would suffer after, their penance easy to achieve. Virginia thrived on a life of luxury. Without money, she would wither to nothing. Balthazar and Eric deserved to suffer in six-by-eight cells, which would happen once I turned over the ledger to the F.B.I. or S.E.C. and testified to the two conversations I had heard the night of Emery’s cotillion.
The one before—where Gideon and Balthazar discussed embezzlement and the downfall of Winthrop Textiles.
The one after—where Gideon, Eric, and Virginia argued in the office, Virginia yelling that Emery already knew.
And Emery’s penance was supposed to be dismantling her trust fund… If she was to be believed, however, she had no trust fund. I believed her like I believed Mariah Carey sung without autotune.
I considered her involvement. She’d been young at the time, which was why I only intended to relieve her of her trust fund. But she was old enough to know better. To, at the very least, warn Reed, Ma, and Dad. That was all I expected. Instead, she’d kept her mouth shut, my parents lost everything, and Dad lost his life.
No, Emery Winthrop didn’t deserve my pity nor my futile attempts to feed her.
I chalked it up to habit. With Virginia forgetting to give Emery lunch money so often, it had become a habit to stop by Reed and Emery’s table at lunch and hand her the brown lunch sack Ma packed me.
Now, she was hungry again, and habit had taken over. Worse, she had met with Brandon Vu outside the tent city. A gilded snake in my stolen kingdom.
Maybe taking me down was her penance.
After all, she had led an S.E.C. agent to my family’s cottage the day of the F.B.I.-S.E.C. raid on the Winthrop Estate. I’d only seen the back of his head, but he wore a windbreaker with S.E.C. printed on it.
Either way, Dick Kremer, the private investigator Delilah hired for me, needed to deliver, or I would level the state searching for answers.
Dick popped a sugar-free Jolly Rancher into his mouth, and I already knew I would dislike him and anything he had to say. I pulled out my phone and shot a text to Delilah.
Nash: Where did you find this guy? Last I checked, Craigslist shut down personal ads.
Delilah: Haling Cove Flea Market. He came with my used tea set. Be gentle. Neither is refundable.
The pad of Dick’s thumb swiped at his nose. He clutched the chair handles with that same finger before drawing his eyes away from my penthouse view. “Emery Winthrop has taken out, like, a ton of student loans. Before this, she had a job at a diner in Alabama near Clifton University’s campus.”
Fika hadn’t told me that.
Fika hadn’t told me a lot of things.