“Calm down, bitch. I have something way better than that.” Mei opens her box clutch and tilts it my way so I get a peek of the freshly rolled joint inside. “It’s laced with coke,” she whispers.

Those are like magic words. I run my tongue over my lips and bite down. “I love you so much right now.”

Mei pulls out the joint she flashed at me downstairs and kicks off her mules, giving me an unsolicited flash of her bloodied and bandaged ballerina feet. She flips her hair out of the way, a shiny curtain of black, then lights the joint with a sequined lighter. I watch her, that little fire blooming between two fingers like jasmine in the moonlight.

She inhales hard, then blows out abstract smoke shapes as she passes it to me. “Your dad hasn’t updated his will since he found out about the remission thing, right?”

“Whoa,” Jared says. “The man fucking beat cancer. Down, girl.”

“No,” I say, taking a hit and passing it to him.

“So you’re still the sole beneficiary?” Mei asks.

I nod.

“Look, we all know you’re not gonna be sober by September.” She shrugs. “If we got rid of him, you get everything, you know. His entire estate. Fuck five million.”

“You’re horrible,” Jared says, letting the smoke out through his nostrils as he slouches deeper on the tufted couch, and there’s something about the way the light from the Murano crystal chandelier above hits his face. He looks boyish and sort of innocent, the way he did before Mei and I corrupted him.

Mei’s expression doesn’t waver. “Didn’t you say he just passed the two billion mark with that new acquisition last month?”

She’s looking at me now. I don’t say anything.

She’s being ridiculous. She gets like this sometimes. Her blinders go up and she can only see her end goal, nothing else, no consequences. She doesn’t even stop to consider the collateral damage that getting what she wants could cause. I can’t actually kill my father. I can’t. Even if we did everything right, I’m still the first person the police would suspect. The person who has the most to gain always is.

But then a new thought hits me. “Wait. What if Dad marries this bitch before September?”

It’s been two years; it’s possible.

I look at Jared as he hands the joint back to Mei, who sighs, bored. “If you don’t intercept now, it’s over. That bitch is gonna get a custom-cut Lorraine Schwartz and you’ll no longer be the heir apparent. You’re screwed just like my dad screwed me. His new wife gets control of his estate if something happens to him, not me. It’s bullshit, especially now that he’s one step away from completely cutting me off.”

I heave out a breath. “Fuck.”