11. Charlotte

11

CHARLOTTE

I step off the curb, scanning the street for a cab. Sophie’s still behind me, trudging along like she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.

The sun is up, the heat rising off the pavement, and I feel the sweat gathering at the back of my neck. But it’s not the heat that’s bothering me. It’s her.

Sophie stumbles to a halt beside me, rubbing her eyes like she’s just pulled herself out of a dream. Her steps are slow, uneven, like she’s wading through molasses. She’s barely holding it together, and we’re not speaking.

“We’re not here for nothing,” I say. “This is called having a job, Sophie. You know, responsibility.”

She doesn’t even look up. The hangover’s got a hold on her, and for some reason, she assumes I’m the one who’s supposed to fix it.

We’re on our way to check out an apartment, which was one of my better ideas, that much is clear. Texas is entirely too far away, and right now, the only thing that matters is dragging Sophie back into the game, not letting her fall into whatever mess she’s trying to create for herself .

I hear her sigh behind me, but I don’t care if she’s tired or hungover. I don’t care if she feels like shit. She said she wanted this life, this world. I didn’t drag her into it, and it’s too late for second thoughts now.

We step into the polished lobby where the agent greets us, but I barely register the niceties, the smiles, the small talk. I’m focused on Sophie, barely able to keep her eyes open as we head into the first apartment. She’s there, but she feels miles away.

When she asks to wait in the lobby, I don’t give in.

I look over the sleek space—modern, spacious, just the right amount of anonymity. It would work. But I don’t care about the apartment. I care about getting Sophie back into focus. Ever since we arrived in NYC, I could feel her fading further away, like she’s not even here. It’s like I’m carrying both of us, and I’m not sure how long I can hold her up.

The agent is talking about the kitchen, the layout, the “luxurious” amenities. But all I hear is Sophie, mulling about in the background, her coffee sloshing around in her hands.

I glance back at her, taking in the slumped shoulders and distant eyes. It’s like she’s somewhere else entirely, her mind running miles ahead of her body, and I know she’s thinking about that boy. He’s trouble—for her, for me—and Sophie’s too young and too naive to see it. She thinks she can have it all, but she has no idea the effort it takes to keep up that kind of lie.

That’s when I hear her soft sigh. It cuts through the agent’s words, pulling me back to a moment I should’ve left behind, one I shouldn’t be thinking about now. In my mind, we’re back at the hotel.

The stillness in the room was suffocating, and I could feel the space between us growing. Sophie’s eyes were unfocused, as if she was locked in some quiet battle with herself. The tension in her body was unmistakable. She was trying to hold it together, but I could tell she was losing.

I turned, meeting her eyes, and the calm was gone. “You drugged me.”

Her hands stilled, like she was trying to make her body disappear into the bed. She didn’t look away, but I could see it in her eyes—she’d been caught, but she wasn’t going to easily admit it.

“I didn’t think you’d notice,” she said, her voice almost apologetic, but I heard the lie in it. She wasn’t sorry. She was just frustrated I caught her.

"Of course you did," I said. "You just thought you could pull it off without me seeing the strings. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice when you slipped something in my drink? When you were standing there watching me sleep?"

Sophie opened her mouth to say something, but then she just closed it. She was trying to find the right lie, but I wasn’t listening to those anymore. She can’t fake it. Not with me.

“I just wanted you to get some sleep,” she finally said, like she was justifying herself, but there was a dark edge to it. "You needed it. I needed you to be…rested."

Her words hit me harder than they should. It surprised me how effortlessly the lies rolled off her tongue.

I let out a slow breath, taking a step forward. “That’s not why you drugged me, Soph. You know it, and I know it.”

Her eyes flashed, but she didn’t look away. “I just didn’t want you to be so…on edge all the time. You’re so high-strung, Mom. Always going, going, going. I thought maybe if you took a break?—”

I held up a hand, cutting her off. “This isn’t about me. You did it so you could sneak off and do whatever the hell you wanted. You did it so I wouldn’t have anything to say about it, so you could avoid hearing the truth.”

Sophie flinched, but she didn’t back down. She was digging herself deeper, trying to make it sound like she was doing this out of some warped sense of care. But I’m not stupid. I knew exactly what she was doing.

“I just wanted to get away for a little while,” she said, her words clipped, defensive. “Without you breathing down my neck. I just?—”

“Just what?” I snapped. “Just what, Sophie? Don’t lie to me. You are walking right into something you know you shouldn’t. And maybe it’s because you’re lonely—maybe you just need a friend. But this business doesn’t lend itself kindly to friends. If you don’t want to face what we’re doing here, what you signed up for, you should have thought about that a long time ago.”

She stared at me for a beat, her face hardening. And then, in a move I didn’t expect, she spoke again, this time quieter. “I did it because you needed it. You’ve been working too hard, and you’re—” She stopped, then forced the next words out. “You’re pushing me too hard.”

I waited for the anger to rise, but something else hit me first. A flicker of something almost like admiration. The audacity of it. The way she could just twist things, make herself out to be the martyr here.

I almost laughed, but I bit it back. “You did it for me?” My tone shifted, the words sharp but with a hint of something else. “You think this is how you help me?”

She wasn’t listening anymore. She’d already found her justification, and it didn’t matter what I said now. “Yes,” she said firmly, her eyes meeting mine, as if daring me to argue. “I thought you’d be better off.”

A moment passed. I looked at her, taking it all in. She was wrong. She was so wrong. But there was something there, something I didn’t want to admit—she almost believed her lies.

I felt my jaw tighten. "That’s your answer, Sophie? You didn’t think? You didn’t think I’d see through this?"

She didn’t flinch this time. She was waiting for me to go on, to yell, to break her down—but I didn’t. Because it didn’t matter anymore.

“You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you,” I said. “But this? This isn’t the way to go about it.”

Her expression shifted slightly. Was it doubt? Maybe. I didn’t know.

It wasn’t. It was anger. Her scoff told me that much. “But that’s not the only reason I did it…”

“Oh, wonderful. Please enlighten me.”

“I know you paid that man to follow us.”

“So?”

“So you let me kill an innocent person. And for what—to prove I could?”

“No,” I said, meeting her gaze. “I did it to teach you a lesson.”

“Of course you did.”

I didn’t flinch. “Rule number ten, Sophie. If you can buy it or blackmail it, don’t trust it. Loyalty is expensive. And anyone willing to sell theirs will eventually sell yours too."

“That doesn’t even make sense. Maybe he just needed the money.”

“Maybe…but you’re the one who didn’t bother to check.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but I didn’t give her the chance. I turned my back and walked out of the room, leaving her there to think about what I said.