Chapter 19 Fitz
FITZ
This isn’t just escalation—it’s, like, a felony, right?
The way she melted under me, how she looked up at me in the yellow light from the landscape bollard, her eyes big. Like she wanted me. It’s the—What’s it called?—fawn response?
But damn if it didn’t feel good to finally, finally be able to just take what I want.
That’s the thing I hated about being poor—everything was a struggle. Want something? Fight for it. Beg for it. Lose face for it.
Now? I want something? I swipe a card, and it’s mine. Immediately.
On the way home, I buy an entire case of single malt just because I can. It will be good for the Fourth of July.
I roam through the darkened penthouse. I’m not one of those billionaires that lives in a sterile tomb, not like Greyson Richmond. I like my stuff.
Normally, surveying my things calms me down.
Not tonight.
What is Winnie playing at?
Why throw her sister at me?
Is it a test? A game?
She wants me.
But doesn’t want me.
Is there someone else? Am I the someone else?
She wants me—that much is clear.
Well, him.
She wants the masked man who’s watching her, anyway.
It does settle the debate—if I were to sneak into her bedroom, gag her, then slowly have my way with her, her pussy would take it, wet and greedy.
I can still taste her.
I want to go to her place right now.
But I also want to draw it out.
Savor it.
When you have unlimited money, novelty is a rare, precious resource.
And Winnie is the rarest thing I’ve had in years.
I’m completely consumed by her.
I don’t want to blow it all at once.
So I’ll play her game—just to keep her close to me.
For now.
“You know the best part about having a lot of stuff?” I say out loud, mostly to myself. “Buying more stuff to keep your stuff in.”
“You have a problem,” Crawford says from the doorway of my storage wing—yes, wing—of the penthouse.
“I’m dusting and reorganizing,” I tell him as I carefully place the action figures back in their little clear plastic bins.
“Marie Kondo says thank your items then let them go.”
“Well, it’s a suggestion, a guideline. Obviously, I’m not only keeping thirty books in my house. Besides, I’m healing my inner child.”
“Yeah, twenty years later, your child is still healing.”
“Of all of us, I’m on the higher end of emotionally mature.”
Crawford’s eyes narrow.
“Okay… actually, I’m not,” I admit. “Half true.”
He blinks. Slow. Judgmental.
“If you’re here about Winnie, she told me she’s not interested, and I respected that. So I’m dating her sister.”
Crawford makes a disgusted noise.
“She asked me to,” I protest. “Hey, where are you going?”
Crawford takes a few steps in.
“Hey—don’t touch anything. Do not touch anything.” I lunge.
“Relax. I don’t want any of your old newspapers from fifteen years ago.”
“I do not save old newspapers. I am not a hoarder. And don’t touch that.” I snatch the box from him.
“You’re going to have to let some of this go.” He shakes his head.
“I will be buried with my Etch A Sketch.”
“The kids are in town to go school shopping.” He opens the double doors to the stationery room. “This will do nicely.”
“Oh, you should have told me. I would have bought stuff for them.”
“I think it will be very healing for your inner child to share the fruits of your labor with your younger siblings. Don’t make that face. I thought you said you don’t have a hoarding problem.”
“I’m not a hoarder!” I run after Crawford as he heads back out into the main living area of the penthouse.
Little hands and fists scrape and slap at the front door.
“They were promised that you’d feed them.” Crawford smirks and holds up my wallet that he’s pickpocketed. “I’ll just order the pizza. How’s that?”
“Fitz!” My dozens of little brothers stream into the penthouse when Crawford swings the front door open. Greg, one of my older half brothers, Faulkner, and Hawthorne herd them inside.
“My babies!” I squeal. “Who’s your favorite brother?” I scoop up the triplets, the smallest of the kids, squeezing them to me.
“And my actual baby.” I pluck my baby niece from Greg’s arms. “She likes me better than you.”
“You wish.”
“She recognizes quality when she sees it.” But I let Greg take his daughter back.
“All right, boys, grab a backpack. You can pick whatever you want,” I tell them loudly as Hawthorne and Greg, my much older half brother, shoo the stragglers into my penthouse.
I whistle at the teenage boys. “Perk up.”
“I had to babysit.” Isaac’s mad.
“And you can have a nice pen for your pain and suffering.” I display the pen tray with a flourish. “That’s a fifty-thousand-dollar pen. Good choice.”
“Why are you spending that much money on a pen?” Crawford scowls, matching Isaac’s expression exactly.
“I need that pen.” Greg snatches it from Isaac.
“Hey!”
“Girls.” I hurry over to my sisters. “This is very nice stationery, handmade. Appreciate the fine quality.”
Greg stuffs bundles of paper in their little backpacks. I grimace.
“Look on the bright side—you can buy more.” Crawford drapes an arm around my shoulders.
“Toys!” several of the younger kids cry as they wander deeper into the storage wing.
“You’re here for school supplies,” Greg barks.
“Aw, let them have some toys.” I follow them. “What do you guys like? GI Joe? Ooh, I have Ninja Turtles. Here’s a bunch of Avengers stuff.”
“Did you buy out Disneyland for all of this?” Greg scowls.
“Batman is Warner Brothers.”
“Why don’t we get some books instead of filling up with toys?” Greg herds them to my second library.
“I have all the Baby-Sitters Club books,” I say.
“I don’t want to babysit anyone,” one of the girls scoffs.
“Me neither. I read it for the drama between the parents,” I tell her.
“You know, it is healing to my inner child,” I tell Crawford, “to just be able to give my younger siblings whatever they want. I’m feeling more saintlike already.
Whoa—okay, not that. Don’t touch that.” I grab the vintage typewriter out of my six-year-old sister’s hands and carry it out to hide it in my study.
“How do you have so much stuff?” one of my sisters asks in wonder.
“Great question,” Crawford tells her, bending down to her level. “It’s called having a mental illness.”
“A crazy person wouldn’t have a candy room!” One of my tiny brothers giggles.
“A candy room?” my sisters squeal.
“Candy!” My siblings go feral.
“You have a candy room?” Hawthorne is appalled. “How old is this candy?”
“You kidding me? Sugar doesn’t go bad. That’s why they preserve things in sugar. Jam keeps for, like, decades.” We follow the herd of kids into the candy store, as I affectionately call it.
“That’s not accurate.”
I shrug. “I was homeschooled.” I unwrap a giant lollipop for one of the kids.
“Okay, let’s not touch the wallpaper—that is hand-painted.” I hook one four-year-old with my foot to keep him from smearing sticky fingers all over the wall.
Greg moves to grab one kid who’s about to choke on a Jolly Rancher.
I scoop up my baby niece. Breathe in the soft hair. Small. Warm. Perfect.
“Hawthorne tells me you’re thinking about settling down, having some little ones of your own.” Greg comes back with the sticky candy. He winces and cleans off his fingers.
“Yeah, I want twenty kids.”
My niece coos sleepily.
“And I’m going to name them all after me.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“Pizza’s here!” Isaac calls.
There’s a stampede into the living room.
“Where are Ophelia and Kiki?” Greg asks, fighting one middle schooler off the soda. “Drink some water. You had too much sugar.”
“I don’t know.” I’m trying to keep four kids from fighting over a saliva-covered scrap of crust. “There is literally more food than you can eat. Share.”
“I didn’t find her,” Kiki announces, wandering back into the dining room.
“Who?” I give up on the pizza boxes. “Fight to the death for all I care.”
“Faulkner says you have a girl locked up in your penthouse.” She kicks one of her half brothers in the shin and grabs the entire box of sausage-and-green-pepper pizza.
“You have a woman—” Greg is livid. “What the—where is Salinger? How is he just letting you all run fucking rampant?”
“Not anymore, apparently.”
“Faulkner, fuck off.”
“You said a bad word,” the kids chorus around their pizza.
“Language.” Greg holds out his phone.
“What?”
“You have to pay. Cash or credit.”
“For a fucking swear word? Just put it on my tab.” I help one kid open up the garlic sauce. “I never had anyone here. I swear. I’m on the straight and narrow. Faulkner’s just trying to start shi—stuff.”
Greg glares at me for a minute then turns back to the kids.
Phew. Thank God none of them stumbled upon my sex dungeon. That would have been really difficult to explain away.