30

Oscar

It’s midnight when the door to my apartment opens and the boys walk in. I’m waiting on the couch, sipping my whiskey.

“You knew we were coming.”

“I suspected.”

They stand in the doorway for a moment. Then Hank closes the door.

“You’ll need to come with us,” Craig says.

“Not just yet. I have questions first.”

“What kind of questions?” Craig asks.

“How did you start working with Hank?”

Craig stills.

“What?”

“And when did he pitch the idea of taking a billionaire to you?”

“Why do you think he would do that?” Craig asks. He’s flustered enough that I know my mother was right.

Shit.

Hank steps forward.

“You piece of shit,” he says.

“Excuse me?”

“You think you get to just say what you want, do what you want, be who you want. You have no idea what your family has taken from the world.”

“You were one of the kids my dad stole. Weren’t you?”

Hank stares at me.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to be in a loving family that dies? Do you? To be thrown into the foster care system and just want your own parents back? My foster parents were fine. Great, even. Then one day, I was walking home from school, and I got lost.”

I watch, waiting.

“I found myself downtown near your father’s business. He was getting back from lunch, spotted me, and invited me in. He said his lunch meeting ran late, so even though it was closer to dinner time, he thought there would be time to munch. That’s what he said. Word for word. Time to munch.”

“And you were hungry.”

“He said he’d call my foster parents. He didn’t. Instead, he sent me off to live with a rich, wealthy family who wanted to train me to be their predecessor. You know the most fucked-up thing? They’d had a son who had died. They wanted me to take his place.”

“What the fuck?”

“And his name was Oscar. Like you.”

“Oscar Prescott,” I whisper. I remember him. He died when we were twelve in a car accident. I hadn’t seen his parents again. I didn’t know they’d taken in a child.”

“My name wasn’t Oscar. They wouldn’t call me anything else. They wanted me to be their perfect kid, and when I wasn’t, they tossed me out. I was sixteen by then, and I had nowhere to go.”

“I am so, so sorry,” I say.

“It’s far too late for that.”

“What was your big plan, Hank?” Dolly steps out of the hall. “You want to kill him or get money from his brothers for him?”

“Ideally, both,” Hank says. Then he pulls out a gun. “But one is going to have to be good enough.”

He points the weapon at me. Then he turns to Dolly.

“I’ll start with you,” he says.

As he fires, Craig shoves Hank hard. The gun fires into the ceiling instead of into the love of my life, and the security team from downstairs instantly rushes in. They grab Hank and Craig both, and they haul them out.

“I’m sorry,” Craig calls to his sister as they’re leaving. “I’m so sorry.”