I barked a laugh, unable to help it. I pulled my hand away and she grinned.
“This idiot isn’t as bad as you think, little sister,” Redmond said, stepping forward. “You’ll be nice to Erin, won’t you?”
“I will if you promise to let me go to Boulder next weekend.”
“We’ll discuss it later.”
“Redmond—”
“Later, Mel.” He glanced at me and sighed. “Why don’t you show Erin to her room? Give her a little tour?”
“Fine.” The teenage girl scowled.
I smiled at her. I remembered what it was like to be her age. I wasn’t so old and jaded that I couldn’t appreciate how scrambled and confusing it was to be young and part of a rich, powerful, dangerous family.
“Come on. You can tell me all the dirt about your brother.”
“Gladly,” she said and stalked off.
I hurried after her. I felt Redmond’s eyes on me the whole time.
Mel talked quietly about the house as we went. She seemed genuinely proud of the architecture for a girl her age. I listened politely, but I couldn’t stop wondering why Redmond would introduce me to her and bring me to this place.
It made no sense. He had to know I wanted to get out of this deal and that I didn’t care for him. Showing me the inner sanctum of the Orchard family was like rolling over and letting me stab him in the belly. There were too many secrets and weaknesses lurking around every corner, and if I were smart and inclined, I could use them against him.
“Redmond says you’re clever. Is that true?” Melanie asked casually as she climbed the stairs.
“That’s what people say.”
“You seem clever. Intense actually. I don’t know what he sees in you.”
“I’m not sure how to take that.”
“It’s a compliment. My brother’s normally into bimbos.” She waved a hand in the air. “You know, big tits, no brains. Not that there’s anything wrong with big tits and being dumb, just saying.”
“You do realize that this thing between me and your brother is a business transaction, right? There are no actual feelings involved.”
“Sure, sure, right.” She reached the top of the steps, took me down a hall, and pushed open a door.
The bedroom was large and spacious. There was a small furnished sitting area in front of a fireplace and a massive king-sized bed. The predominant feature was wood.
“Do you get a lot of visitors here?” I asked, looking around the space. My bag was already dropped next to the bed.
“No, we don’t. Well, not when my dad was still alive. Nobody ever came here.”
“And now?”
“Redmond’s more social than Old Bern ever was.”
It sounded strange hearing the dead Oligarch’s daughter use his nickname. She hopped up onto the side of the bed and let her feet dangle, kicking them slightly back and forth, leaning on her hands. She watched me with a bright smile, and she looked so young in that moment—just like a seventeen-year-old girl. It was easy to forget that the people who grew up in these houses were children once, because they were always forced to grow up fast.
That was how things were in the Servant manor. Grow up and get hard or suffer. Livvie never learned, and she took her own life. Penny struggled with it, and she ended up the property of an Oligarch.
I had a hand in that one, admittedly.
“Do you miss your father?” I tried to ask as casually as I could, but I was probing and she clearly knew it.
But she didn’t seem to mind. “Not in the slightest. Do you miss yours?”
“Not at all.”
“Then we have something in common.”
“You’re not mad about what your brother did to your dad?”
She shrugged. “I grew up in this family. I know what to expect.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Her face tightened and her smile faded. “Have you ever met a happy Oligarch family?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
“My family wasn’t any different then. We were all miserable, especially Old Bern.”
“And now that he’s gone?”
She shrugged and gestured at the ceiling. “Some of us are better and some are worse. The ones that couldn’t accept what Redmond did—” She grimaced and dragged a thumb across her throat.
The way she casually spoke of her brother killing people in their household was chilling, but so familiar. I was that way when I was her age, and I knew all my sisters and brothers were the same. We grew up with death and destruction and power every day, and we couldn’t escape it if we tried.
There was no innocence, and there were no innocents, in an Oligarch’s world.
“You should be careful with Redmond, you know,” she said, bouncing up and down on the bed.
“Why’s that?” I drifted toward the windows and looked out at the manicured grass cut in perfect geometric patterns. Oligarchs worked so hard to make their homes exude power and grace—and so few people ever saw them.