Page 51 of His Kidnapped Queen
Nico.
Just the man I hadn’t wanted to hear from. Because Nico only calls me when he wants something.
“What?” I bark into the phone.
“Jesus, who pissed in your cornflakes?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose between my thumb and index finger. “What do youwant, Nico?”
“Who says I want something? Can’t I just call up my brother to chat?”
I go silent, just waiting.
“But now that you ask…”
“Just spit it out, Nico.”
“I need some money.”
Of course he does. I took over my father’s finances when he was first diagnosed with cancer. Father had insisted, knowing that his decline may be swift, but they’d given him six months and it’s nearly two years later. Knowing him, he’ll live forever out of spite.
“For what?”
Nico sputters. “Does it matter? I’m your little brother, just float me a loan.”
“How much?”
“Twenty.”
“Grand?” It’s a drop in the bucket for us, but there’s no reason Nico would need that amount of money unless he was in some kind of trouble. “What loan shark do you have to pay off now?”
“It’s not a loan shark,” he mumbles.
“Take it out of your trust fund.”
“I’m saving it. For the future.”
What future?It’s not like Nico and I are likely to make it to fifty given this lifestyle, and given Nico lives so recklessly, he’ll probably be even younger when it ends.
I sigh. “Alright. Where are you? I’ll bring it by.”
“I’m at the mansion. Where the hell areyou? Did you finally get laid?” Nico teases, but I’m in no mood.
“I’m working. You might want to try it sometime.”
“Tried to work last night,” he mutters. “You wouldn’t let me.”
“Because you could barely stand,” I retort, and Nico falls silent.
He usually would argue, would usually say something cruel back, but he needs the twenty grand. Father would have given it to him without a single word, but he no longer has access to the off-shore bank accounts, or even to the mountain of cash I keep stashed in the library of the mansion.
That’s the way he’d wanted it.
“I don’t want to go all senile and spend all our money,” he told me, handing me a ledger with all of our accounts listed. Nico had been angry at first, had wanted control over the money himself, but even Father knew that was a bad idea.
His favoritism didn’t extend to work. He knows I’ve always been the responsible one, besides, I’m a decade older than Nico. The empire is mine by bloodright, even if I’m not even sure I want it anymore.
I’ve spent my whole life working for my father. I barely had time to mourn my mother, being thrust into the life at fifteen years old. The first time I’d killed a man, my father had stood over me, ordering it. I was seventeen.
