Series: Cobalt Empire Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 234
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 226965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1135(@200wpm)___ 908(@250wpm)___ 757(@300wpm)
Tom and Eliot lit a rosemary bush on fire.
A girl scraped her knees at Disneyland and her dad was being an ass to her. I didn’t understand why.
Beckett was there when we were kids. Before he left for his dream. I’m nineteen, and he’s here again. Right beside me.
This feels like my dream—like I am dreaming. Because it can’t last. I have to wake up.
“You need to be in the city with us,” Beckett says quietly to me, drawing my gaze to his. “New York is where you get to live, and I mean truly live. This is your time to be selfish, follow your ambitions, fuck the night away, let it all go—and we’ll be with you. You aren’t alone here, Pip.”
I nod a few times, trying to cool the simmer in my blood.
“Have you talked to Dad?” Tom wonders. “About what happened that night?”
That night.
I can barely see what I did. Rage tore through me. I think I blacked out for half of it. I smashed a Porsche in with a bat. Then I knocked out the guy who owned it. I assaulted him on his front lawn, and I think I would’ve killed him if I wasn’t pulled off.
So have I talked to our dad? Who relates almost 100% with Charlie? Who would never rage like an unhinged ape? Yeah, no. “I’m not looking for Dad to psychoanalyze me,” I mutter quietly.
“Then Mom?”
I shake my head. “Not really.” She’s already told me she would’ve skewered that guy with her high heel. She is a proponent of revenge. But it didn’t make me feel much better.
My brothers wanted me to come to New York almost immediately after I lost control. After they heard I did all of this alone. I don’t think anyone expected it.
“Something’s going on with you,” Jane had said. “Pippy? Just talk to us. We’re all here.”
She’s number one.
Jane Eleanor—the best of us. And for once, no one would disagree.
I try to breathe.
I relax more when they concede to the couch idea. Beckett says they’ll get a pull-out. I offer to pay. I’ll put it on my credit card.
They get weird when I bring up the cost. It’s August, and less than three months ago our trust funds were replenished with a jaw-dropping amount. We should all be beyond flush.
All trust funds are different, depending on who sets them up. Ours isn’t free money raining down from cobalt-blue skies.
I don’t have access to the billions my family is worth either. My inherited and gifted stock from my family’s companies is unattainable until a specific date. Years from now.
I don’t make dividends. I can’t sell stock for cash. It’s all inherited wealth locked behind pearly gates that only means something when someone Googles my net worth. I’m only nineteen. I’m not hurting enough that I’d need to cash out pots of gold at the end of a rainbow.
My trust fund, though—that is more accessible.
Our parents planned all our trust funds the same in an effort for us to learn fiscal responsibility. A hard lesson for kids born of billions. On May 15th of every year—starting at whatever age (within reason)—we could draw a lump sum from our trust. A portion had to be used for education, but the rest, we could do whatever we wanted with it.
Spend, splurge, invest. Doesn’t matter.
It’s up to us, and if we fuck it all away, then we suffer the consequences of those actions. They won’t bail us out or offer us more money.
We have to wait for the next May 15th.
The sum we receive every year—it’s far, far beyond the median annual income. Enough to start a new business, enough to secure our futures, and there are no rules. My parents have given us the opportunity to sink or swim, and currently, I’m an anchor at the bottom of the Atlantic.
My savings account is a whopping zero.
My checking account is zero.
I’ll have to wait almost a whole year for that number to grow. All I really have are some credit cards, and I’m not too eager to use them when I can’t afford to pay them off anytime soon.
I tune in as Eliot says to me, “You can use our bathroom.” He’s referring to his bathroom with Tom, even though I had no intention of using Beckett’s. I’m not really messy, but Beckett has a particular way in which he keeps his things. Product labels facing outward, bath towels symmetrical and aligned on the rod, Q-tips lying flat in a container. And those are just the ones I know about.
“Or I can just use the powder bath,” I suggest.
“There’s no shower,” Tom says, which derails us into banter about sponge-bathing and maybe I’m the one with a stink. I don’t fucking stink. Eliot sniffs under my armpits. Confirms I smell like cedar and pine.