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Natasha

Bopping my head to the music flowing from my headphones, I puffed out my lips absently before flopping my head back. Writing the entire code from start to finish was taking much more effort than I’d anticipated, and I glanced over at Fred as he scribbled away on a notepad.

We were putting the final touches on the story, the drawings, everything was just waiting on me to finish the scripting.

Whichsuckedto write.

“Hey, Fred—” Pulling my headphones off to catch the tail end of his grunt of acknowledgment, I licked my lips heavily. “Wanna go bang?”

“Don’t procrastinate, Natasha. Keep working.” Smirking broadly, even as sourness stained my tongue, I sat back in my chair, and Fred glanced up from his notepad to frown. “You just want not to work. I’m not falling for that, you sleaze.”

“It was worth a shot.” He snorted at me, shaking his head curtly, and I turned to my laptop and sighed. “You’re not that hot anyway.”

“Your shot was going to miss, and you know it. I’m not gonna be your bad habit, Natasha. How close are you to being done?” Groaning loudly, I swayed side to side in my chair, but Fred didn’t give me the time of day. “I’ll take that as not close at all. Why don’t you just focus on finishing, and maybe you’ll find someone to help with finishing later.”

“There’s no fun in it if it’s not naughty.” He ignored me, and I pushed back my chair to stand and stretch my arms high above my head. “I’m gonna grab a snack. Want something?”

“Sure.” Wandering out of the small conference room and down the hall to the lounge, I ran my hands up my face and through my hair. We were cutting it down to the wire now. Our deadline to start compiling was only a week away. February was right around the corner, and the crappy weather was making everyone cranky. Glancing out the window at the dirty, wet snow that piled up on either side of the road, I scrunched up my face in dismay. Every time it snowed, it got uglier outside, and I just wanted to see some green for the first time in months.

Speaking of green . . .

Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I scrolled through my notifications to tap Valerie’s text message. She and Carlyle were currently in Paris for ‘inspiration’ for her drawings, and I rolled my eyes at the pictures of the Catacombs she’d sent me.

We were making a horror game, so I understood wanting to go to one of the most creepy places on the planet. The Paris Catacombs inspired movies and stuff, so it must have some entertainment potential. Thankfully, my sister didn’t have to be here to work and coordinate with Fred, but that meant I was stuck with him.

“I wish I was in Paris, damnit.” Aside from my daily walks across the bridge, I hardly ever left our apartment just because I had nothing to do. Grumbling to myself as I popped open the refrigerator, I frowned as I peered inside. All the food was delivered, for security reasons, I guess, so I couldn’t even take a trip to the grocery store. I didn’t have a car, which seemed like a really bad move now that I was so far from the city.

I was glad Valerie was so happy and in love, but I was borderline miserable with boredom. Fred, Marshal, and I had talked about moving out, but we also agreed not to make any plans until after our app launched.

That wouldn’t be for a few months, at least.

“Maybe, I’ll go do something on Saturday.” Grabbing a little container of grapes, I rocked back on my heels and frowned deeply as the door swung shut. I couldn’t even remember the last time I went out, let alone to a party. Actually, that might’ve been when Carlyle made that Lyft driver take us home that time.

Shrugging lightly, I popped the top and stuck a grape in my mouth as my mind raced through everything that’d happened since then. Who knew that one chance meeting at a pizza place would change our lives so much? Sure, Valerie was head over heels for Carlyle, and I was pretty much collateral damage, but so many events had happened.

It’d been months, and Carlyle was still paying out for those gang members. Even though he didn’t have to go that far, he did it anyway, for his own sake, of course. I wasn’t an idiot. Valerie didn’t even know about most of the more brutal things Carlyle had done on our behalf.

Flexing my hands around the container, I inhaled deeply as I chewed. Valerie and I had never talked about what we did downstairs, but I was okay with that. I never told her about who was in the other room, or the fact that our mom was dissolved into absolutely nothing. The only part of her that existed now was in our memories, and those would fade, maybe.

Hopefully.

I’m certainly not going to ruin that for her. Valerie was happy, safe, and dare I say, living her best life. But what about me? My sister was pretty much my only reason for being alive, and it’d always been like that. Now, she was making her own way with someone else, and I was stuck here, alone and bored out of my skull. Shaking my head roughly, I popped another grape into my mouth and tried not to think about how dismal my life had become.

Eventually, I’d find something that made me happy. That thought was what got me up in the morning, just like so many years ago— if I just persevered, it’d get better.

“Natasha.” My head snapped up at the call, and surprise rose my brows when Marshal came sauntering across the lounge with a huge smile on his face. “Why are you grumbling to yourself? Did Fred chew you out about procrastinating again?”

“Yeah, but that’s not why. Anyway, what’s up with you? How’d it go at court?” He leaned against the counter to rub his palms together, and I scanned him from top to bottom through narrowed eyes. “It went great, I guess?”

“You guess right— Jenna got ripped to shreds. The judge orderedherto paymealimony, I get one of the cars, I get my apartment back, and she has to pay me back all the utilities and rent that I paid while under the restraining orderplusthirteen thousand dollars in emotional damages.” My brows rose in surprise at that— the lawyer Carlyle had contacted really did a great job. Smiling as Marshal beamed in triumph, I nodded mutely, and he clapped his palms together. “We’re still going to be married for another thirty days, but after that, I’ll never have to see her cheating, lying self again.”

“Congratulations. How are you going to celebrate?” Marshal had initially been so upset about his wife’s drama, but over the past months, he’d really come to terms with it. She was a bitch, and he realized how much happier he was without her, how much she lorded over his life, and how miserable he was even at the height of their marriage.

Even knowing what he knew, Jenna still fought him in court, and she lostbadly.

“I actually can’t do anything right now. We’ve got a week before we have to start compiling, and I’m behind because of this legal business.” Scrunching up my face in distaste, I bit back a groan at the reminder, and Marshal chuckled lightly. “We gotta do it, Natasha. We don’t really have any cushion room. Once the app launches, I just know it’ll be a hit. We can even branch out and do other genres. I know Fred is up for it, and it’ll be a lot easier for you, too, because you’ll have the infrastructure already made.”