Page 2 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
Though they lounged in the mansion’s office, smoking overpriced cigars, Gideon’s voice boomed beyond the open door into the foyer where I leaned against the tiger’s ass. Hiding, because secrets were currency in Eastridge.
I hadn’t planned on spying during my weekly visit to my parents, but Gideon’s wife had the tendency to threaten Ma and Dad with unemployment. It would be nice to have the upper hand for once.
“Too much money is gone.” Gideon sipped his drink. “Winthrop Textiles will collapse. It may not be tomorrow or the next day, but it will happen.”
“Gideon.”
He interrupted Balthazar. “With the company folded, everyone we employ—the whole damn town—will lose their jobs. The savings they invested with us. Everything.”
Translation: my parents will be jobless, homeless, and broke.
“As long as there’s no evidence of embezzling,” Balthazar began, but I didn’t stick around to hear the rest.
Scum.
Ma and Dad devoted their entire savings to Winthrop Textiles stock. If the company collapsed, so did their futures.
I withdrew from the foyer as quietly as I had come, dipping past the kitchen and into the Winthrop’s laundry room, where Ma had left the old suit Gideon had gifted me for tonight’s cotillion.
I slipped into it, stopped by the storage room, and tucked the joint I’d confiscated last week from my brother Reed’s selfie-obsessed high school sweetheart into the outer pocket of the suitcase Gideon took on business trips. A little gift for the T.S.A. And people say I’m uncharitable.
After Gideon had finally left for his daughter’s cotillion, I didn’t think twice as I snuck into his office to search it. Eight years ago, when my family had moved into the cottage on the edge of the Winthrop estate, I had made it a point to possess every key, every password, every secret this mansion held.
Ma managed the household, while Dad maintained the grounds. Making copies of their keys had required no effort. Extracting the password to the office safe, however, meant creating a make-believe game for Reed and his best friend, Gideon’s daughter Emery, to play.
I entered the code into the safe and sifted through it. Passports, birth certificates, and social security cards. Yawn. The desk drawers held nothing interesting outside of employee files. I yanked the top one completely off of its track and felt around the hole it left.
Just as I had finished up my search, my fingers brushed against buttery leather.
After pulling off the tape, I latched onto the leather and plucked it from the cavern. Held up to the light, the journal boasted dust on its cover and nothing else. No name. No brand. No logo.
I flipped it open, taking in the rows of letters and numbers. Someone had kept meticulous records.
A ledger.
Leverage.
Proof.
Destruction.
I felt no guilt as I stole what wasn’t mine. Not when its owner wielded the power of destruction, and my parents stood in his line of fire. Dressed in Gideon’s suit, I looked like an Eastridger as I strolled out of his mansion with his ledger tucked into the inner pocket.
When Ma called, I told her nothing as she begged, “Please, Nash. Please, don’t cause a scene tonight. You’re there to drive Reed home if things get out of hand. You know how those Eastridge Prep kids are. You don’t want your brother catchin’ no trouble.”
Translation: Rich kids get wasted, find trouble, and the kid with the secondhand uniforms and academic scholarship takes the blame. Tale as old as time.
I could have admitted it then, told Ma about Gideon’s misdeeds.
I didn’t.
I was Sisyphus.
Crafty.
Deceitful.
A thief.
