Chapter 4
He pulled out his phone and worked the screen fast, and the news about the Fosters came right up.
"The Fosters, richest family in the city. Your parents were so torn up after you went missing that they both died within a few years.
"So your brother has to have been looking for you all this time."
Then he saw the news about Emily and stopped mid-sentence.
"Your brother, William Foster, adopted a girl six years ago, named her Emily, and treated her like his own sister."
His voice kept dropping.
I gave him a stupid grin. "It's funny, isn't it? My own brother found me and then didn't want me."
"Then why haven't you gone to him?" Jack shouted.
I smiled, and the tears came down without a sound. "I'm afraid to."
And I didn't have the time either.
Jack went past angry and pulled me along to go get an answer out of William.
He was so far gone he left the camera he never put down, and he only held on to my hand.
That warmth felt so much like William's in my memory that I lost track of where I was.
Standing at the grand front doors of Foster Manor, something ridiculous came up in me anyway.
Maybe William would take me in.
The housekeeper walked us inside.
We had barely reached the study door when we heard Emily, all tears and coaxing.
"What if Sophia makes a scene and wants to come back? Would you stop wanting me?"
William's voice came back soft, with a smile in it.
"I've raised you for six years. Don't you know me? I'd give up Sophia before I ever gave you up."
"William, you animal!" Jack kicked the door open.
The air went solid.
William didn't bother lifting his eyes, and his voice stayed level.
"Jack, is it? I looked you up. A small-time influencer who fakes it for traffic.
"Go ahead. What do you want?"
Jack was ready to go at him, and I held him back hard. "There are bodyguards out there. You'll come out of it worse."
He ground his teeth and pointed at William. "Yeah, I've staged things for money, but I don't take every dollar that comes.
"And you? All that money, and you leave your own sister on the street eating garbage. You're animal!"
William laughed once, coldly, and his eyes came at me.
"So you want money."
I was about to say it wasn't the money when Emily came at me and tore the necklace off my neck.
"That's my necklace. My name is on it. You stole from me?"
I got both hands around it. "I didn't. I found it."
She was terrified William would learn she had thrown it away, so she called me a thief and fought me for it like her life was on it.
In the middle of it, my nails caught the back of Emily's hand.
The slap cracked across the room.
William had come at me and hit me across the face. "This is what happens when you're raised somewhere else. No manners at all. You steal, and then you argue about it?"
I was stunned.
The burn on my cheek went all the way down into my chest.
Jack shouted and pulled his arm back to swing, and the bodyguards put him on the floor.
William took out a stack of bills and threw it in my face.
"It comes down to money after all. Take it.
"I told you I'd bring you back once Emily passed away. Did you have to do it like this and turn our stomachs?"
The bills went up and came down all over the room.
Something sweet came up in my throat, and I put a mouthful of blood across the scattered cash, and the red was hard to look at.
So I wasn't going to make ten days after all.