Page 20 of No Longer Mine

A punishment of my own making.

Cleo snapped her fingers in front of my face. “You good, Red?”

I blinked, shaking the thoughts loose. “Yeah. Fine.”

She studied me with those eerie purple contacts, her head tilting slightly before she leaned back against the worn-out couch. “Who’s the money going to?”

I didn’t answer right away.

Instead, I let my gaze drift over the stacks of bills—neatly bundled, each one representing another layer of distance between me and the world I’d grown up in.

Cleo didn’t push.

Instead, she smirked. “Did you take some for yourself?”

I lifted a brow. “Did you?”

She grinned, flashing perfect white teeth. “Of course. And I made sure Oliver got his cut too.”

“Perfect,” I murmured. “Then I guess we’re all set.”

A beat of silence. Then?—

“Wanna go to the movies this weekend?”

I looked up, her tone light, almost hopeful.

I smiled. “That sounds like fun.”

Her shoulders slumped dramatically. “That means I’ll have to wear the wig and ditch the contacts, won’t I?”

“Probably wouldn’t hurt,” I said, bumping my shoulder against hers.

Cleo wasn’t her real name.

But then again, neither was mine.

I never asked what hers was. She never asked about mine. That was the deal. We were both orphans—both ghosts. Names meant attachments. Attachments meant weakness.

I kept my first name, though.

Scarlett.

It was the only thing my parents ever gave me that mattered. That meant something.

But my last name? That had been forged, carefully crafted by Oliver Park—the only family I’d ever known.

We met as kids in an orphanage, scrappy and too stubborn for our own good. Inseparable. Oliver, the tech genius. Cleo, the seller. And me, the one who stole the things she sold.

We were a perfect trio.

But my new identity meant I had to keep up appearances.

Unfortunately, that also meant Cleo couldn’t be Cleo.

At least, not when we were in public.

She sighed heavily, dragging a hand through her hair. “Fine. But you owe me popcorn.”