Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Trevor reclaims his putter from me.
And I’m caught on his features.
His eyes.
I stare deeper into them. Gray. One of the rarest colors, and yet, we’re not related. Not even to Hailey, who has the same shade.
My face hardens in an instant.
“What is it?” Trevor frowns.
“Our eyes,” I tell him in a haunted thought. “They picked you for your eye color. So it’d be the same as Hailey’s and mine. So we wouldn’t question that we were related.”
Trevor leans on his putter with two hands again. “So I was stolen or adopted into a life of crime because of my fucking eyes?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
He glares at the rising sun, then faces me. “Should I be mad? Because I like my life, Rock. I like being your brother. I like traveling around the country. I liked learning about the British monarchy and getting to sit in at an Ivy League lecture hall when I was seventeen. I like what we do. No, I love it. I won the motherfucking lottery!” He shouts loud enough that birds fly out of the nearby trees.
“Jesus Christ,” I say with an eye roll.
“I’m not you and Hailey—I don’t care where I came from. All that matters to me is where I’m going.”
“Okay,” I breathe out, trying to shove off the weight that’s compressed on my chest. But it’s difficult when I feel an intense responsibility toward doing right by him. Ever since we learned he’s not Addison and Everett’s…he’s felt like mine. Maybe he was always mine in a strange way.
“Where are you going, if that’s all that matters to you?” Jake asks him.
Trevor lines up in front of his ball and takes a long moment to study the shot before he sinks it with one smooth hit. He smiles. “Wherever he’s going.” He tilts his head toward me. “I’m there.”
This kid.
I shake my head, but there’s an immense amount of love for him that I can’t shake off. Not even as we hop on the golf cart and head toward the next hole.
Sitting in the back, Trevor leans forward to stick his head between Jake and me. “New plan. I did a summer abroad and a three-week internship with the Earl of Wessex. I’ll ask Varrick for an internship and tell him I need to pad my résumé before graduation.”
Jake grips the steering wheel tighter. “Wouldn’t Varrick call your royal references?”
“He would,” I say and glance to Trevor. “How do you know Varrick cares about hiring someone with a royal résumé?”
“Everyone cares about status here.”
“Not everyone,” I shoot back. “You can’t assume everyone is the same. People have different motivations, different reasons for why they drop a grand like it’s a five-dollar bill. And I’ve said this a thousand times, there are some people you do not fuck with.”
“Stay away from anyone who’s in the dark triad,” Trevor says, “I heard you a thousand and one times.”
Jake frowns. “The dark triad?”
Trevor grins and places his chin on his fist, looking to me like he’s enjoying this crash course in the art of confidence games.
I push his head back. “The dark triad of traits. It’s a psychological theory of personality. But for us, anyone with all three traits can be harder to manipulate.”
“What are the three?”
“Narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. They lack empathy, among other things. And they’re likely already running Ponzi schemes or committing crimes.”
Until Trevor can tell who those people are, I worry about him choosing a mark of his own, but I also don’t want to control him like our parents did.
“You think Varrick is in the dark triad?” Jake asks.
“I don’t know,” I sigh. “We’ve only interacted once.” And that was a month ago at The Hunt. I don’t have any other evidence besides the way he looked at me—and that instinct, that gut feeling, it means something but it’s not enough. Still, when I learned about his family’s tragic backstory and Varrick being the last Wolfe standing—that only intensified those same feelings. I tell them, “Varrick showing up outside the grocery store and scaring Phoebe and Hailey can’t be a coincidence. He’s up to something.”
“Maybe he just has the hots for Phoebe,” Trevor says, coming forward again.
“Sit down,” I snap and push my brother back down into his seat.
Jake is glaring out the windshield. “He’s in his forties.”
“Older men have hit on PG before,” Trevor says. “It’s literally her role to entice them. Spread her—”
I grab the collar of his polo. “One more word and you’re eating grass.”
He looks at me like I’m the problem. “It’s legitimately the fucking truth, Rock. Be mad at the person who assigned her the role, not me.”
“I’m mad at everyone, how’s that?” I let go of his shirt.
“Who assigned her the role?” Jake wonders.
“That’s hard to say,” I breathe out. “Maybe her mom. Maybe mine. Maybe my dad. Maybe all three of them.”