His brow furrows. “I knew you were tense when I walked in. Since when do you care about cleaning, right?” He nudges his head at Boone who’s singing as he works. “He’s a good kid. He’s just anxious. And the Kappa thing? Hopefully he’ll figure it out on his own.”
“I hope so.” I went through hell when I pledged. Forced to drink, play stupid games, run errands for the brothers. The alpha in me rebelled from the beginning.
Reece holds my gaze. “And tell your dad to ease up. It’s your senior year. You aren’t perfect. No one is.”
I nod, but . . .
He doesn’t know my family history.
Everyone must be perfect—or they pretend to be.
My dad.
My mom.
And me?
I took the place of my perfect, dead brother.
7
Julia
I walk to the city center four blocks away and find the local pawn shop.
A man with too much aftershave looks the ring over with one of those jeweler’s loupes while I stare at the big TVs on the wall.
Desperation fills me as I mull about Connor. He’s been known to rough up a few of the girls that used to dance at the club because of their debts . . . or worse. One of them, Minnie, quit to go “work” for him, fell into his heroin trap and overdosed a year later. Another, Gina, slapped him one night at the club when he groped her.
There are still missing posters of her on light poles around town.
The other girls told me not to mess with him, but the warning came too late.
My mother had already started buying from him.
She wasn’t always an addict. When I was growing up, she was a manager at an upscale restaurant called Spinelli’s. The clientele and staff loved her. It didn’t have great health insurance, but she assumed it was enough.
One night after working late, she fell asleep at the wheel and ended up upside down in a ditch. She somehow walked away from the wreck but had cracked three vertebrae in her neck.
It hurt to walk. It hurt to sit. It hurt to breathe.
I remember tears streaming down her face when she stormed out of an orthopedics office after finding out how much her surgery was. She finally had the surgery—what choice did she have—then another one. Her pain got better but never went away.
Connor offered her a never-ending supply of painkillers. Of course, they weren’t free. When her bill became several thousand dollars, he cut her off, then came to me for the money.
The pawn shop owner frowns. “Three hundred for this.”
Nausea swirls. I’ve seen enough pawn-shop scenes in movies to know he’d try to undercut me, but I didn’t realize he’d do it by that much. “It’s worth more.”
“No one’s gonna want it—it’s already inscribed.”
“Yes, but can’t you buff it out—”
He shoves it to me. “Sell it to one of those places that pays cash for gold. They might give you more.”
I can’t deal with the thought of it being disassembled and melted down. At least if I pawn it, I’ll know that someone else will use it.
He lets out a resigned sigh. “I see that look in your eye. It means something to you. You’re going to try to buy it back. So just pawn it. Three hundred.”
“Will you sell it to one of those gold places?”
He leans in over the counter. “I won’t trade it unless it doesn’t sell in three months.”
That’s actually . . . nice. Oh, wait. “How much would it cost to buy it back?”
He shrugs. “I’ll sell it back to you at twenty-five percent interest.”
I gaze at it in despair. I don’t want to part with it, any more than I want to part with my own heart.
But I need to let it go.
There’s no point trying to buy it back.
One by one, I’m losing everything we once owned. First it was our house, then the furniture, my car, and now this.
“Four hundred,” I counter.
“I don’t make deals.”
“Three-seventy-five.”
He blows out a breath, his gaze softening a hair. “Okay. I’m in a good mood today. Deal.”
My chest relaxes. With the other money I gave Connor, that’s enough to pay him the rest of what I owe plus get a start on other bills I need to pay. I still have rent, utilities, school supplies, and food. I’d love to buy something besides ramen and soup.
I leave the pawn store and pull out my phone to make the call I’ve been dreading.
Connor answers with a grouchy, “Yeah?”
“It’s Julia,” I say as I cross the street, heading toward the laundromat. “I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t know who that guy was.”