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I got out of my car and reluctantly headed for the door.
He got out of his Mercedes, too, looking as self-assured as always. Like the prep school and Harvard graduate that he was, he wore a polo shirt with the collar popped and some light khaki pants that looked casual but probably cost about the same as my mortgage. Paired with some loafers and designer sunglasses carelessly pushed into his hair, my half-brother was very much giving off rich Upper East Side asshole vibes.
To be fair, he was.
Still, he was pretty much the only family I had who was somewhat tolerable—most of the time.
He swept the glasses off, his blue eyes glinting at me in confusion. “Where were you? It’s not your day to go grocery shopping, is it? And where’s Violet?”
I sighed, heading to the door to open it up. “I was at work, no, it’s not, and Violet is at home. Or maybe the babysitter took her to play at the park.” Hopefully, that would be the case. Carson wouldn’t stay long if Violet weren’t home.
And as much as I liked my brother, his visits tended to exhaust me.
Carson, for whatever reason, had my entire schedule memorized, but I wasn’t sure he did it on purpose. He was just the kind of guy that pretty much has a habit of planning everything in his life. I was the one thing he couldn’t plan.
I was about fifteen when my mother let it slip that I had a brother. I’d never known who my father was until that moment, and I only found out because she got drunk and chatty during a particularly cold Christmas in our trailer park.
“We shouldn’t be living like this,” she grumbled, staring off at the ceiling dazedly while I cleaned the vomit from the floor. “Your father is a big shot, you know. Mayor Lawson. Maybe I should have told him about you. Maybe he would have helped me with you.” Then, she shook her head almost instantly. “No. He would have taken you away too, and then I would have no one.”
The last part wasn’t said with affection, and I didn’t expect it. I knew my mother mostly tolerated me because I was useful to her. She was even less affectionate when she was drunk, and she often became vicious and mean.
Besides, I was too stunned by the reveal to even be offended. I never asked about my father because the one time I did, she’d instantly burst into tears. I assumed he was dead or something. But it turned out he was alive and didn’t know who I was.
The thought wouldn’t leave me, and I often wondered if he would want to meet me. He at least deserved to know he had a daughter.
So, I’d gone over to the mayor’s mansion, trembling with fear and anxiety and a little bit of excitement. I’d introduced myself at the gate as Lala Moon’s daughter, half expecting them to throw me out. But then they called me in, and my excitement grew. He remembered my mother. He might be happy to see me too. All my life, my only family had been my mother. What if I had a parent who loved me?
But it all turned out to just be the delusional hopes of a silly little girl.
Because the mayor turned out to be arguably worse than my mother.
He was a cold man who’d stared at me without smiling when I told him who I was. Then, he’d instantly asked me how much I wanted in order to keep his secret. Confused, I told him I didn’t want money, but he insisted he didn’t make deals otherwise. I explained my living situation, and he told me that he would put me through school and pay for my college education, but in return, I could never tell anyone who I really was.
Not even his son, Carson.
He introduced me to Carson as a cousin.
Since then, Carson has become a constant fixture in my life. The thing about Carson was that he didn’t always say or do the right thing, and he could be a bit of a snobby asshole sometimes, but I knew he meant well. He was just the type that genuinely thought he knew what was best for everyone.
“You should move to a different neighborhood,” Carson started as we walked into the living room. He looked around my house with familiar distaste. “And a bigger house. There’s not enough room here for Violet to play in.”
“You’re only saying that because you grew up in a mega-mansion,” I bit back. “This is a decent-sized apartment for most people.” Heck, the trailer park I shared with my mother was about half this size, and I thought it was fine.
“You’re only saying that because she’s tiny now,” Carson argued. “What happens when she grows up and wants a little more privacy?”
“She has a room she can go to,” I pointed out.
“That’s not enough. What if she takes an interest in the piano or ballet? There’s not enough room to fit a Steinway in here. She would have to start going to studios to practice, and that can take eight hours at a time, which might mean she’ll start coming home late. And God knows what kind of trouble she could be getting into.”
And this was the exhausting thing about meeting with my brother. As much as I loved him, his nagging could get tiresome, and I had no hope of ever winning an argument with him.
“Mmm,” I said noncommittally to end it. “Did you just come over to discuss my daughter’s potential hobbies, or was there something else you needed me to know?”
“Yes.” My brother ignored my sarcasm and continued to glance into the kitchen as though expecting a burglar to pop out. “There was a shooting at Elmore street yesterday. Two old ladies got robbed and killed in their own backyard.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “Elmore is in another county. That is almost an entire hour away.”
“Still. Too close for comfort.” He turned to me with a frown.
