Our money tripled. Then he started an investment company, with me and him having a fifty-fifty split, and he’d turned it into a multi-million-dollar profit-making machine. I had no idea how he did it. I didn’t ask the hard questions; I just gave him money, and he made millions. That was the deal.

“If we can’t buy Huey, we buy the girl instead,” he said, his voice deadpan.

Everyone had a price. We both knew that all too well.

Chapter Four

NOVA

I had not been prepared. Honestly, nothing could have prepared me.

When Janette had dropped off a sleeping Huey, I’d looked down into the face of my baby brother and fallen in love. Deeply. Wholeheartedly.

I knew as she placed him in my arms that I would do absolutely anything for him. Give him anything. Raze the world for him. He was dressed in a tiny blue onesie, with a little cap on his head, his closed eyes fanning tiny blond lashes across his cheeks. He was beautiful.

I’d put him in the crib in my room, filled out all the paperwork Janette had given me while he slept, and grilled her for forty-five minutes about little things I should know. She’d given me his medical history, and that of Alana’s. She’d also given me a box full of Huey’s baby things, including a picture of him with his mom, and I’d held it together reasonably well, I thought.

But after Janette had left, I’d stared at that photo. The girl in it was so full of life and happiness. She was blonde, which must have been where Huey got his soft blond fuzz from, and she was smiling as she held him close, looking down at him with such love.

I’d sat on the couch and cried for her. Cried for the fact she’d never see her baby grow up. Cried that my dad—the man I’d loved and respected—had done her wrong. Cried about the unfairness of it all.

If she hadn’t died, would she have ever sought me out? Would I have ever met Huey?

Then Huey had woken up and freaked out, as much as an infant could freak out. He didn’t know me, but here I was, trying to give him a bottle after testing its temperature on every sensitive part of my body. I’d even dripped a little on my eyelid.

He’d finished his bottle, then continued to cry. He cried until I called Rita next door. She’d come over, burped him, put him to bed, and then held me while I sobbed. When she finally went home, Huey had cried on and off all night.

What the fuck was I thinking?