Page 37 of Wicked Surrender

I watched, helpless and increasingly mad, when they cut all ties with him.

Without money, he was homeless. Without funds, he had no prospects for work.

All too soon, he fell into a life of dealing whatever drugs he could find.

“You need anything?” I asked, glancing around to check that we were alone in this abandoned building. Flipping through the money in my wallet, all that I could withdraw from the frat house’s account until my parents’ allowance deposit would go back into it, I held out the only money I had.

The Reeves name meant money. It meant power and generational wealth. Soon, it might mean political power. But since I proved how untrustworthy I was in college, they prevented me from having any money to myself. It went to the frat house or to my food allowance. They’d already bought my car. Other expenses were handled. All of them were, as far as any materialistic things went, but I had no money of my own.

Not until I turned twenty-five and after graduation would I personally see a cent of my trust fund.

They emptied out William’s already, putting the money into my dad’s political campaign.

“Thanks, Brother,” he said, taking the money before thinking twice.

“Still no word from Mom or Dad?”

William laughed bitterly, switching his chew again. “No. Last I heard, they sold the mansion for a place near the capital.” He shrugged. “They won’t talk to me. I gave up trying.”

I clenched my teeth, hating how I was a failure of a brother. I’d always tried to look out for him when we were kids because our parents never gave a shit, but in hindsight, that was probably the reason he got so stuck in that cheating crap.

He’d never learned to lie well because I always did it for him.

And now, I was hopeless to help him after his future was destroyed.

One day, I could help him a lot. I’d always wanted to go into medical school to become a doctor. I had always wanted to have a profession that would help others when they were sick. When I was little, I was fascinated with the body and the science of how medicine worked. William and I had grown up obsessed with watching medical dramas and emergency shows.

Until Iwasa doctor, though, I wouldn’t be making any money at all.

“You’re not fucking around at school, are you?” he asked after we tried and failed to share some small talk, mostly wasting time commenting about the weather, of all fucking useless topics.

I ran my hand over my hair, hedging an answer.

“Because you don’t want this life, Jason.” He grunted and looked around, then scratched at a scab on his arm. “Mom and Dad cut me off completely because of what happened to me.”

“Dean Chen isnotexpelling me,” I told him.

“I hope not, Brother.” He hung his head. “But don’t tempt fate. Mom and Dad won’t care.”

He didn’t need to remind me. I was already aware of how reluctant our parents were to bail me out. I was living the consequences of their distance because they wouldn’t pay a donation so I could stay in college now.

Just like every other time I saw him, which wasn’t often because he didn't like making himself available to talk to me when he could push drugs instead, I left feeling like complete shit.

I hated that he was there.

I despised that I was stuck to help him.

And it deepened the festering hatred I bore for the man who’d set Willaim’s downward spiral into action.

When I returned to campus, I worked out to vent my anger. It didn’t calm me, though. If anything, using my muscles revved me up to be even madder by the time I’d meet with Laura. The academic recovery program scheduled us to have a tutoring session tonight, on a Friday evening, to make up for what we missed yesterday.

And I was fuming. Spoiling for a fight. Anxious and excited for a chance to take out my anger on the Chen family.

She arrived moments after me, cautious like she always was.

After she put her books down on the table, she sat and met my eye. I glared, not changing my expression at all.

Because seeing her again renewed this really inconvenient desire that I couldn’t shut off. I wanted her. She had to be my enemy, my target, but I lusted after her, nonetheless.