Page 45 of Souls and Sorrows

“Shocker,” Palmer coughs, shaking his head.

We grow quiet as a server comes over, setting a steaming mug in front of Palmer, a champagne flute in front of her, and taking my drink order. When he returns with a lemon water for me, I take a sip, leveling her with my unimpressed gaze.

“Whatdoyou want to talk about then, Mother? Or do I even want to know?”

“Goodness, can’t a woman ever come out to visit her children?” Palmer and I just stare at her, and she finally groans, dabbing at the corner of her pink-painted mouth with a cloth napkin. “Okay, look, I’m in a sort of… awkward spot. Financially.”

One of Palmer’s eyebrows arches, and he slides his gaze to me.

I recline in my seat, schooling my features. The fact that she’s bringing this up in my brother’s presence is an immediate red flag, though I’m not sure where she’s heading.

“You’ve blown through the money Dad left?”

“That’s millions of dollars,” Palmer adds, and I can tell he’s trying to do the math in his head even though none of us knows exactly how much anyone else got.

“Yes, well, it’s always been important to the public and the Primrose name that I keep up with a certain lifestyle.”

She clasps her fingers together, and I notice that she still wears her engagement and wedding rings. Even after everything my father did to our family, she’s loyal.

Makes me fucking sick.

“Well, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree,” Palmer interjects, leaning on the table with his elbows. “We aren’t going to loan you shit.” He glances at me. “Right?”

I don’t say anything. Instead, I keep my eyes on her, wondering why she’s bringing this up here of all places. She could have just as easily come to my apartment, or even just called and had funds wired over, if it were that big of a deal.

Not that I would’ve obliged her request, but still.

She looks between us. “You wouldn’t help your own mother?”

He shrugs. “Not when she wouldn’t help us, if the situation were reversed.”

My mother clicks her tongue. “Cassius, I didn’t raise you to keep secrets from your siblings.”

“Saying you raised us at all is a bit of a reach, Mother. I remember the au pairs.”

Palmer slams his hands down on the table. “Will someone just fucking tell me what’s going on?”

Smoothing my fingers up the front of my dress shirt, I adjust my glasses and look at him. A grease smudge, likely from the body shop he does detailing at, dots his hairline, and that familiar twinge of guilt presses against my rib cage, reminding me of what a dick I am.

“Did you not explain to your siblings that providing me with a stipend from each payout was one of the provisional clauses?”

The emotion has completely left her tone, and she looks at me with a hint of something I don’t recall being there before—malice. It lights up the color of her irises, giving her an animation I wouldn’t have thought possible before my father’s passing.

But I suppose when one villain fails, there’s another waiting in the shadows to take their place.

Taking a drink of my water, I sit forward and reach for her hands. They’re soft and smooth, proof of the simple, easy life she’s led, in which she never had to ask or work for anything.

My fingers curl around hers, tightening slightly. Just enough to make her uncomfortable.

I feel Palmer’s stare on the side of my head.

“Wait, so you got money, and we got money, but we also have to give you a portion of our money? How is that fair?”

“Your father was anything but fair,” our mother says with a bitter laugh. “Otherwise, why would your brother have gotten so much when we got so little?”

I’d hardly call millions “so little,” but then I see why she showed up to ask for it in the first place. My siblings were cut off from our father’s inheritance while he was still alive, but he still gave them something to avoid it being seized by the state.

They aren’t aware of how much he had in assets and savings, and they definitely aren’t aware of how much I received.

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