Page 80 of Caged

I pause in disbelief, stunned by the noise. Half of the window frame has come loose.

I scamper from my perch and wrap both hands around the handle. With all my might, I pull up until my vision blurs and my head feels light. Nothing moves.

I pull a second time, stopping only when I feel like I am on the verge of blacking out.

Collecting myself, I take a deep breath of carbon dioxide and pull a third time.

A tiny, barely audible crack.

Keep going,I scream at myself.

I pull a fourth time.

A fifth time.

A tenth time.

A twentieth time.

It’s not until somewhere around twenty-five that I feel my knees buckle right before my head hits the floor.

35

KIEREN

Five Months Prior to Present Day,

Spring Break, Junior Year,

Connecticut

“Father.”

I begrudgingly acknowledge the man who cannot be bothered to look away from his computer monitor.

“Kieren,” he responds without pausing his keyboard strokes. “When did you get in?”

This bastard knows I arrived home yesterday. How can you miss my fucking car in the driveway? But his behavior doesn’t surprise me. My father’s never been a warm individual. He sees the world as a series of gains and losses. Affection and praise are tools he uses to manipulate his desired outcome. Disdain and neglect are his weapons of choice when you fail to meet his expectations. The fact that my mother has stomached his behavior for almost twenty-five years is mystifying, but I’m sure she has her reasons – the kind of reasons that can afford amansion in Connecticut, private tennis lessons, Birkin bags, and whatever the fuck else a black AMEX can buy.

I’d wager a Bentley that there’s a voodoo doll under a floorboard somewhere in this house with a sewing pin shoved through the chest. She almost got lucky last summer, but the motherfucker pulled through. I will say, she put on a good show.

“Your mother’s at the club having lunch with Clarissa Fitzroy and her daughter, Serenity. Do you know Serenity Fitzroy?”

Of course I know Serenity Fitzroy. Anyone who attended a private school on the East Coast is familiar with Serenity Fitzroy. Although she attended Brearley, which is an all-girls private school in Manhattan, we ran in the same circles. She’s also fucking gorgeous. The epitome of an aristocratic, pure-bred beauty, rumored to be entangled with a member of the Luxembourg royal family, although I don’t believe a direct heir. Pity.

“Yes. Why?”

He shrugs, cold, impassive. “The Fitzroys are a new client.”

I raise an eyebrow in surprise. “Really?”

“Indeed they are, son. It seems the work you’re doing has already begun yielding dividends.”

I know I’m expected to take over Hunt Wealth Management when I’m of proper age and tenure at the firm, but I hope to fuck I never speak like my father, where every other word ties back to an investment reference.

“Good to hear,” I say. It’s the closest I will ever get to a compliment.

“We need to talk about your situation,” my father says, pausing mid-keyboard stroke at this statement. He crosses his arms in front of his chest to face me head-on, readying for a fight, and even though I know his statement is about Monroe, I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.