The irony was a bitter pill I couldn’t swallow. In this house, the savages wore silk and drank artisanal blends.
I dragged myself toward the back door, my legs feeling like lead. As I passed the living room, I saw Kyle. He was twenty-four, unemployed, and the “crown jewel” of the family. He looked up from his phone just long enough to offer a slow, jagged smirk. It was the look of a predator who knew he was protected by the alpha.
I stepped out into the humid morning air, the broom handle slick in my shaking hands. I looked at the reflection in the glass door—a twenty-six-year-old woman with a bruised face and hollow eyes. I was old enough to leave, but they had spent years ensuring I was too broken to fly. My savings had been drained to fund Kyle’s third “tech startup,” a venture that vanished into a cloud of expensive dinners and high-end watches. My car had “mysteriously” seized up the day of my last promotion interview.
