“Blank note is fine,” I clipped.

“Righto,” she sing-songed. So fucking cheerful in the morning. “Would that be all?”

“Yes.”

“Loads of noise in the background. Are you traveling anywhere special?” She tried to lighten the mood.

Could I deduct the tip for the time she wasted trying to mingle with me? Because pretending to give a damn seemed way above her pay grade.

“Hertfordshire,” I said. “St. Albans.”

“You must visit London, if you haven’t. It’s quite close.”

“Great idea.”

I’ve been to London more times than you’ve taken shits, lady.

I killed the call, leaned back in my seat, and tapped my knee. Harry Fairhurst did exactly what I thought he’d do once I sent him a picture of his lover buck naked, with graffiti over his back and ass that read HARRY FAIRHURST IS A CHILD MOLESTER.

He grabbed his keys and dashed back to Carlisle Prep, where Dominic was still locked in his closet, because—c’mon, give me brownie points for the irony—his gay lover was locked in a closet.

In his bid to save his ass (and maybe Dominic’s, though I wasn’t holding my breath), he’d forgotten his laptop at his house. I knew because I’d planted a little tracer on that bitch when I sneaked into his office one day and could see its location at any given moment.

And whaddaya know? Someone just happened to block the highway he was driving on his way to Carlisle, in case he figured out I wasn’t there and decided to dash back home.

That someone was paid nice and well by yours truly—more than enough to replace the crappy Alfa Romeo 2001 he’d smashed right into a Sainsbury’s truck to stop traffic.

God bless hedge funds.

As for Harry’s house keys? What can I say? I was saddled with sticky fingers…and very slippery morals. Making copies the day I put a tracer on Fairhurst’s laptop was like taking candy from a baby.

The train stopped at St. Albans, and I got off, feeling fresh as a daisy, other than the dull headache Good Girl gave me yesterday. But that was probably nothing compared to the hell she was going through this morning after outdrinking every fish in the Atlantic Ocean.

I texted the chocolaterie woman and added two bottles of water to my order. Might as well. Len still thought the chocolate came from someone else.

I looked down, and there were three missed calls from my dad.

He can wait, I thought, proceeding without caution.

I didn’t have to hack into the laptop.

But once I sifted through the files he had on Mom—all the lies, all the pictures, all the testimonies, edited recordings of her, emails she’d never written, orders she had no idea were going to arrive with cocaine bags stashed inside the frames of the paintings—I considered it my little, final, burn-in-hell parting gift.

Once I’d deleted everything from Fairhurst’s cloud and destroyed all the evidence on his camera, I smashed my boot into the laptop and tucked it into Harry’s neatly made bed.

I finished off by pissing all over said bed and laptop, in case he was bad at taking hints.

That still left me a few hours to burn before my next train to Berkshire. Dad called a couple more times. Mom, too, but I didn’t feel like talking to them from Fairhurst’s house. I was too on edge whenever he was concerned.

I settled for giving myself a tour of Harry’s house. I’d never been there before. I took it upon myself to unplug his fridge and open the freezer, letting the meat thaw. Then I opened the back door in case any wild animals found themselves itching for a treat. I finished by helping myself to some of his pricey status watches, to make it look like common burglary.

Of course I made sure to deposit the Rolex and Cartier watches at the train station, in the hands of a homeless person sitting outside, begging for pennies, charitable piece of shit that I was.

By the time I got back to Carlisle Castle, I had two emails waiting.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Vaughn,

I checked the clouds of his other account. All clear. Your father said he’ll foot the bill for this job. Good luck and let me know if you need any further help concerning the matter.

T.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Son,

Either you pick up your damn phone and answer me or I’ll make my way over there. Spoiler alert: you won’t like it if I do.

Your father

Had Jaime told him about the trust-fund money? Or had Mom found out what I did with it through her arty-fartsy friends? I clenched both my teeth and my phone, knowing I wasn’t quite finished with my multi-million-dollar task.

Dad could wait.

He had to.

“Oh, God…Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”

I woke up in my bed, feeling like a fist the size of a wrecking ball had pressed against my eyelids. I was never going to drink again. Ever.

Unless drinking would make the headache go away, in which case I was fully prepared to binge-drink my way into a coma.

The room came into focus in pieces. First, I saw a pile of wrapped gifts lying in the corner. Someone had brought them in while I was asleep. I made a quick, albeit painful count. One from Poppy (probably the long one; she knew I was interested in a particular watercolor print for my room). One from Harry (possibly the fancy-looking bag, containing an equally fancy sensible sweater I’d never wear), a tiny bag from Papa (jewelry, no doubt), and a large box enfolded haphazardly in paper. That was one-hundred-percent Pope’s doing. He knew I needed new tools and had splashed out.

Nothing from Vaughn. I didn’t let myself dwell on that fact.

It was truly over, as it should be. It had been a god-awful idea to begin with. Don’t roll in bed with a tiger and be surprised when you wake up with claw-shaped wounds. Lesson learned.

Speaking of rolling, I did just that, falling to the floor with a thud. It hardly surprised me when I couldn’t even feel the hit my body suffered. After spending a full minute staring at the ceiling and giving myself an internal pep talk about not drowning in self-pity, I turned on my stomach, crawling on all fours toward my door.

Then I realized I didn’t really have a plan. Who was I going to call? Officially, I was not talking to my father (was he even talking to me?), Poppy was probably long gone back to London, I’d put Pope in enough trouble by showing up plastered on his watch, and Vaughn—not that he had a shred of humanity in his entire ripped body—cared as much about my wellbeing as he did about the cobwebs under my bed now that we were over.

Whatever we had been.

Christ, I was good at making a mess of my personal life. I wish I could do that for a living.

Somehow, I scraped my door open. Another basket full of chocolate, brownies, and two cold bottles of water awaited me, along with a steaming cup of coffee that looked fresh.

I managed a smile, even through the headache. Poppy.

Dragging the basket inside and unscrewing a water bottle took immense effort, but after a few sips and the sugar rush of a brownie, I wobbled to my feet and hauled myself to the showers. Papa and the senior staff had plush bedrooms, with showers and built-in closets, and at times like this, I longed for Papa’s private bathroom, but of course, not at the price of accepting a truce.