THE ONLY THING THAT cured a hangover was waking up at the butt crack of dawn. Somehow, that shock to the system sucked up the last of the alcohol better than sleeping it off. Worked like a charm every time.

The morning after Hill had tried to have me killed because of—what had Slim called it? A peace offering—and Paige had made it all better with double-decker BLT’s and just existing in my kitchen, I wandered out of my bedroom. Low voices drifted from downstairs and around the corner. Riley and a woman.

I glanced across the hallway and found Paige’s door shut. The voice wasn’t husky and sexy enough to be hers, anyway. So who had my older brother dragged home with him this time?

Downstairs, a tall, skinny blonde pressed up against Riley by the front door. Likely one of Dad’s interns, judging from her wrinkled jacket with a button that read Cleary For President!

Still barefoot, I crept up to them and clapped Riley on the back hard enough to make him jump. “Did you see the letter from your doctor with the list of all your STDs? I left it on the table for you, bro. You’re welcome.”

Riley’s face turned all sorts of red, and I grinned bigger at each and every shade.

“Calista,” he said through clenched teeth, “you remember my brother SamRam, the comedian?”

She held out her hand while her gaze wandered over my bare chest, down my happy trail, and back up again. No way was I touching the hand that had probably just handled my brother’s dick.

“SamRam? Is that really your name?” she asked, lowering her hand. She tilted her head, and a speck of dried makeup slid down her cheek from the black smudges under her eyes.

“Nickname,” I said and turned back to Riley before this chick brought my hangover back in full force all over her blue heels. “You do remember who’s upstairs, right? Or did you forget for the five minutes you were here yesterday?”

The veins in Riley’s neck stuck out. I figured I had just a couple seconds before he was going to blow.

“Yeah, I fucking remember, Sam,” he said.

“Who’s upstairs?” the blonde asked.

“Nobody, just some girl he kidnapped and locked inside the padded room he built.” I wriggled my finger back and forth between them. “Has he shown you that yet?”

Riley rolled his hands into fists, the red on his face crawling past his hairline. I widened my feet in case he dove at me.

The blonde shook her head with a skeptical smile. “Padded room?”

“He usually saves that for at least the third date,” I said and winked at my dear old brother.

“Okay. That’s it.” With his glare aimed at me, Riley yanked open the door. “Carissa, will you wait for me outside, please?”

“It’s Calista,” she said. When Riley didn’t say anything, she ducked out the screen door.

As soon as she was a safe distance away, Riley stepped up to me, his face inches from mine. “I get what you’re trying to do.”

I shrugged. “And what am I trying to do?”

“Make me feel guilty for not helping you. Make me look bad in front of Paige and everyone else. Don’t you see what I’m doing is for this family, too?”

Oh, that fucking fuck. “And how is screwing an intern helping our family? I got shot at last night.”

The beet red color drained from Riley’s face within seconds. His throat ticked with a hard swallow. “What?”

“Hill set me up,” I hissed. “Sent me to a party with rat poison, I guess to get rid of some of his competition.”

“Shit.” Riley raked his fingers through his hair, eyes about to bug out of his head, then glanced in the direction of the stairs. “Keep your voice down.”

I jerked my head in the blonde’s direction. “Did she keep her voice down last night?”

Paige might’ve thought it was me fucking someone. But I never wanted to be the one to make those big dark eyes of hers look at me with disgust.

“We were quiet, okay?” Riley said. “Look, I’m sorry. We had to come back here to get some files anyway. Dad leaves for Dallas in a couple hours, and then I’ll be home. Just go do whatever it is you do all day. And why are you so worried about what Paige thinks?”

“I... I’m not.” I stepped away from him so he couldn’t see the lie that was probably written all over my face. Jesus, I needed to pull it together. We had enough happening in this house without a brother showdown.

“Good.” He slapped my cheek lightly and held his hand there, in a caring older brother sort of way that couldn’t fool me. “I know you used to like Paige, but stay away from her, got it?”

Too late. “Not my type at all.”

He nodded while he slapped my face a little harder. “That’s right. You prefer skanks, right?”

“Mmm, actually sloppy seconds,” I said, jerking my head toward the screen door. “Why don’t you give me the number of the therapist your ex went to? I’ll go give it to Calista as soon as I’m done with her.”

There was that red shade of pissed that leaked into his face and tight jaw again. “Leave my ex the hell out of this,” he said, then pushed against the screen door to leave.

“I’m fine, by the way,” I said. “No bullet holes, but thanks for asking.”

He sighed. “I’m glad you’re okay. Just...don’t bring your work home with you.”

Like Rose had. All ten pounds of heroin she’d promised Hill she would sell had gone straight up her nose over the course of a month. That was why we were in this situation in the first fucking place. Well, part of the reason. The other was that Hill refused to sweep the debt Rose owed him under the rug. He didn’t want to be paid in money; he wanted a drug dealer starter kit with me.

Plus, Hill had gotten his hands on a certain set of pictures of Riley and Daddy-o handing over money to beautiful women who weren’t standing behind a sales counter. If I didn’t deliver for Hill—both figuratively and literally—those photos would be leaked and Dad’s bid for presidency was screwed. But I didn’t give a shit about him and Riley. Not really. I was doing this for Rose.

Riley glanced in the direction of the stairs. I did, too, in case Paige was standing there.

“And I’m not just talking about Rose, Sam. What if you had been followed back home?”

I hadn’t. Tony and I had made sure during the hour we drove around the neighborhood, trying to unfry our nerves with the rest of my tequila. But if there was even a slight chance Paige was in danger just by living in this house, she needed to go. The whole shitty day yesterday had proved to me that the drug business was just as unpredictable as a desperate junky.

“I was trying to help Paige out by letting her stay here, but if she finds out—”

“That you can’t keep your dick in your pants?”

Riley sighed. “Just hurry up and pay the debt back so we can be through with Hill.”

All 1.1 million dollars of it. No problem.

It didn’t matter that Dad was running for president, or maybe it was because he was, but Hill didn’t make deals. It was his terms, nothing else, or he would expose my family for what they truly were—a cancerous wound. His words, not mine. But he was right.

Dad didn’t know anything about Hill. I intended to keep it that way until the debt was paid back the way Hill wanted it to be—my “services.” I didn’t become a drug dealer to protect Dad and his stupid race to be president. This was all for Rose, so when she got out of rehab, she could concentrate on being my little sister again instead of worrying about any kind of debt owed to Hill.

“You agreed to be the one to work for Hill,” Riley said in a low voice. “If you don’t want Paige here, then you be the one to tell her to leave. I’m not doing it.”

I nodded, completely unsurprised. Sure, he could be an asshole behind her back but never to her face.

But if I could not fuck up for once, she would be fine. As long as I did whatever Hill asked, showed up on time, learned to detect rat poison before I got shot at, everything would be okay. Paige could continue to sit in the kitchen with me every night for the next six weeks with her hard nipples jutting against her Reading Is Sexy T-shirt. That would be just fine. I could pay the debt off within record time. Paige would never have to know.

I was such a selfish prick sometimes.

While turning the lock on the door, I started to shut it on Riley before he made it outside. “Nah. I’m not doing it either.”