Chapter Ten
Margo
Twelve hours earlier.
In hindsight, I probably should’ve waited until morning.
However, if I’d done that, I would’ve had to disclose the most embarrassing, broken parts of myself to Rossy in order for him to understand, and I didn’t want to do that. There was no way in hell I was going to let the toxins of my past touch my present and taint my future.
Not after the way I’d had to crawl my way out of my own grave.
“Is this the right place?” the driver rumbled from the front seat, looking at me in the rearview mirror.
It had been a long ride, and when I had my money back, the ride back home would feel even longer.
Thankfully, this service let me choose a round-trip option.
Granted, it cost a huge chunk of money I had to pull from my stash at the back of my closet.
I learned a long time ago to always keep cash tucked away in case your entire life imploded on a whim.
Just like mine was on the cusp of.
“Unfortunately,” I muttered, looking back at the shitty house across the street.
I tried to ignore how even more run-down it looked since the last time I’d been here.
The shutters were each hanging by a single nail on either side of the front living room window.
The screen door was off the hinges, leaning against the porch wall, surrounded by junk, and that same variation of trash was littered all over the front yard.
There was so much now that you couldn’t even see the grass.
The tree, once beautiful and vibrant, had been chopped down, but the fuckers decided to use the stump as the beer can collector.
Shame weighed heavy on my shoulders as I ripped my eyes away, swallowing the lump in my throat.
“I was never supposed to be back here,” I whispered to myself. Once I stepped out of this car, the promise I’d made myself years ago would be broken, and right now, the notion of that was nearly detrimental.
“Are you getting out? Or can I take you back home?” the driver asked. We’d been idling here for the last ten minutes, and I was grateful that tonight, of all nights, this driver was kind.
“Yeah, sorry,” I pushed out, twisting my hair into a bun at the top of my head. “I just needed a second.”
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked, looking at the house and then back to me. “No offense, but this looks like some horror movie shit.”
My hand went to the door handle, popping the door open. “You have no idea.”
She twisted, turning around in her seat. “I’ll be here with the window down,” she declared. “You need help, you yell. I don’t like this.”
Yeah, she was getting a fat tip.
“Thanks. This shouldn’t take too long.”
I just had to kick my brother’s ass first.
When the associate at the bank had told me there was a glitch in the system and that my little brother had withdrawn all the money in my account, my stomach had landed on the floor of my apartment with a deafening splat.
After the initial shock wore off, the betrayal took its place.
All of this was partially my fault for having too much faith in him, holding on to the hope that he would break free from the bullshit of our bloodline.
That hope was the entire reason why, when I opened this account when I was eighteen, I added him to it.
Even though he’d never taken me up on the offer, I kept him on just in case he ever needed anything, any help to get him on his feet.
Because, after everything, I still cared.
However, stealing nearly twenty grand out of my account was not the way to thank me.
As I crossed the street, the pit in my stomach grew and my fingers began to twitch at my sides.
A small growl of frustration formed in my throat as I stepped onto the curb and balled my hands into fists.
I tipped my head back to the look at the peak of the house, taking in the roof damage illuminated by the blinking streetlight.
“You got this, Margo,” I chanted to myself.
Our parents were long dead, our mother having passed away when Marcus was only five years old.
I’d been nine at the time and had spent the rest of my childhood shielding him from our father’s anger, his drunken nights, and his drug use.
Then, when Marcus turned twelve, everything started to shift.
Suddenly, in our father’s eyes, his son wasn’t the little shit he’d always been, but a companion he could take under his corrupt wing.
I tried to stop it, the influence, but Marcus craved our father’s approval more than survival most days.
When I turned eighteen, I opened the bank account and left Marcus a note with all the information on it before leaving—heading off into the sunset with another mistake—thinking my life was finally starting to turn around.
Inhaling deeply, I climbed the rotting porch steps.
I tuned out the questionable creaks and cracks under my weight as I went.
I lifted my trembling fist to the door and knocked three times, using the same sequence we had from childhood for our secret meetings.
That time together, those precious moments we shared under the protection of our pillow fort upstairs when Dad was passed out on the couch, was something else my father ripped from me.
I counted to fifteen before knocking again—harder, this time.
In the middle of the second knock, the rotting door was ripped open, revealing a stranger to me.
My eyes widened, my lips parting as the breath in my lungs left me, my heart damn near shattering at the sight before me. This wasn’t a stranger—this was my little Marcus.
“What the fuck do you want?” he snarled, baring his yellow stained teeth. His putrid breath hit me, the utter stench of it forcing me to take a step back.
It smelled like he was decomposing from the inside out.
Ever since his growth spurt in seventh grade, Marcus had been taller than me.
He was the same height as our father, just under 6’4.
The only difference between the two of them was that Dad had meat on his bones.
He was built like an offensive lineman and used the power of his body to hurt the ones he was supposed to love.
Marcus had been skinny the last time I saw him, but now he was nothing but skin and bones.
His hair was thin on the top of his head, his scalp gleaming under the orange porch light.
His clothes hung like giant sacks off his shoulders and hips.
He leaned forward, the stained blue shirt shifting with him, giving me an alarming view of his pointed collarbone.
“Marcus,” I rasped, shaking my head. “What the hell happened to you?”
He looked like death warmed over.
I knew it was bad. I mean, I could only assume, since he never answered my calls, returned all my Christmas cards, and blocked me on every social media platform he was present on. But I never thought it would be this bad, that he would reach this point.
“What the fuck do you want?” he clipped, stumbling forward a bit, bracing himself on the doorframe, a half-empty bottle of whiskey hanging from his hand.
“Do you know who I am?” I found myself asking, tilting my head to the side, wondering how much damage the years of constant drug use had done to his brain.
An unsettling laugh bellowed out from him then, the sound making my skin crawl as his yellow eyes looked me up and down as if I were beneath him. “Margo, get the fuck off my porch,” he slurred. “I don’t have time for your shit tonight.”
Clearly, he wasn’t in the mood for a reunion.
All the love vanished from my voice, my question ice cold. “Where’s my money?”
A sliver of panic flashed across his brown eyes, an expression he didn’t want me to see. He brushed it off, straightening and pursing his lips. “Why in the hell would I know where your money is, Margo?”
“I—”
“Haven’t fucking seen you in years. Even then, you couldn’t bother to give me the time of day. Too busy bouncing on Gordon’s dick to notice your little brother.”
I took the brunt of his words, shoving the pain that followed down as quickly as I could, keeping my face neutral. “You know where my money is, Marcus,” I said calmly. “You withdrew over twenty grand from my account two days ago.”
He scoffed, rolling his eyes and raising the whiskey to his cracked hips. “You don’t know fucking shit.”
My eyes dropped to the bottle, noting how it was the cleanest object on this property. “You buy that fancy bottle with my money, Marcus?”
The bottle fell away from his face lazily and a cocky smirk formed. “Damn right I fucking did. It’s been a minute since I’ve had the taste of quality on my tongue.” His eyes did a quick scan of me again. “Looks like you’ve known that taste for a long time, haven’t you, sis?” he sneered.
“I’m only going to ask you this once, and if you don’t answer, I’m going to the cops: Where is my money?”
He shook his head, unbothered, before taking a second swig, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
I bit down, grinding my teeth as my nails dug into my palms. Any longer, and I was sure to draw blood.
“You aren’t going to go to the cops. We both know you don’t have the balls,” he murmured, laughing again.
“Jesus, if Dad could see you know, he’d be so disappointed. ”
“Because I’m not a drugged-up failure like you?” I quipped.
“What did you just say to me?”
“I didn’t stutter.”
He stepped out onto the porch, pointing at me with the mouth of the bottle. “Watch your tone, bitch,” he threatened.
I kept my feet planted, staring at him while trying to remind myself that his condition, the way his life turned out, was not my fault in the slightest. I did what I could as a child—as an older sister—but there was nothing more for me to do.
He wasn’t my responsibility, and truthfully, never had been.
I just loved him too much to let him go, but now, I realized that I should’ve let him go a long time ago.
“Marcus, please,” I pushed, my voice still level. “Answer the question.”
He snapped then, slamming the bottle onto the porch between us, his eyes like flames.
Shards of glass and whiskey hit my Docs, but I didn’t falter, unyielding as he lost his mind.
“You told me I could have that money whenever I fucking needed it! Well, I fucking need it, and now you’re wanting it back? ”
“That’s not what my letter said to you, Marcus.”
His hands shot up, going into this thin hair, gripping the remaining strands as he screamed at me. “I needed the money! Can’t you just get more from whatever fancy-ass pedestal you climbed down from?”
“That money was for my final semester of school,” I said evenly, my throat burning. “You had no right.”
“I had every fucking right,” he seethed, lunging forward. I toggled back, stumbling down the steps. “You’re my family!”
I shook my head. “No,” I whispered. “We stopped being family the second chose the needle over me.”
Marcus stomped down the steps, charging for me, teeth bared. “You want your money back, then you need to go get it from the person I owed it to.”
I went numb then. “Owed it to?” I repeated.
He threw his arms out, as if that summed everything up. “Your brother was in a bind, and you came through. Be proud of that.”
My upper lip curled, my stomach in knots as tears formed against my will. I was at my breaking point, and he got proof of that when I wailed, “Where is my money, Marcus?”
His hand shot out before I could deflect, the back of it connecting with my face, the force of his hit taking me to the ground.
I fell back into a pile of trash, empty oil cans, and milk jugs.
I covered my cheek, the sting radiating through my temple and jaw as I glared up at him.
His chest was heaving, but it was the look in his eyes that scared me the most.
It was the same look our father used to have when he needed to use me as a punching bag.
“Hey!” my driver called. “Back the fuck away from her!”
From behind me, I heard the car door slam, but I couldn’t look away from the monster standing above me.
“You want your money, take your whore ass over to Gordon’s, hop back on his dick, and work for it.
My account with him is all caught up, and his fucking boys are finally off my fucking back,” he explained, his breath choppy.
“Thought my big sister would understand that, have some fucking compassion for me.”
I’d been wrong.
My world hadn’t fallen apart this afternoon.
No, it was crashing down around me right now.