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For wicked princesses who feed themselves with knives instead of silver spoons.
Fate: (noun) the development of events beyond a person’s control, sometimes considered to be determined by a supernatural power.
Fate whispers to the warrior, “You cannot withstand the storm,” and the warrior whispers back, “I am the storm.”
—Unknown
I. Tacenda
/ta-‘chen-da/
Things that are not to be spoken about or made public
Things that are best left unsaid
Tacenda originates from the Latin participle taceo for ‘I am silent’. Taceo is also the verb for ‘I am still or at rest’.
Taceo reminds us silence isn’t a sign of weakness. It is a sign of rest, of certainty, of contentment.
Silence is the best response to people who don’t deserve your words.
Emery, 15; Nash, 25
Nash
I had a habit of touching things that didn’t belong to me.
The Stepford wives of Eastridge, North Carolina begged to sample the bad boy from the wrong side of town. If I had a dollar for every time a twenty-something trophy wife ran to me after her sixty-something husband went away “on business,” I wouldn’t be in this situation.
Sometimes, when I felt irritated with the gluttony of designer this and that, the ten hours a day I worked to repay grad school loans, and the way Ma owned one pair of worn-down, knock-off New Balances yet still spared a few bucks for the church bucket, I would indulge some Stepfords.
(Hate-fuck was the proper term, but no one had ever accused me of being proper.)
Their step-daughters, practically the same ages as them, came to me wet and willing, looking for something to brag about with their friends.
I indulged them, too, though I enjoyed them less. They sought entertainment, whereas their step-mothers sought escape. One was calculated; the other, wild.
And despite how much I loathed this town and the Midas veneer Eastridgers wore like minx on winter coats, I had never crossed the line of keeping something I’d touched. Until tonight with the ledger I just stole from my parents’ boss, Gideon Winthrop.
Gideon Winthrop: billionaire entrepreneur, the man who pretty much ran Eastridge, and a piece of shit.
Mounted on the silver-flecked marble of Gideon’s mansion, a silver statue of Dionysus rode a tiger sculpted from electrum and gold. The artist had etched the god’s cult of followers into the tiger’s legs, bearing a remarkable resemblance to Eastridge’s cult of wealth.
I had hidden behind the four-legged beast, my hands shoved into my tattered black jeans as I eavesdropped on Gideon Winthrop’s conversation with his business partner, Balthazar Van Doren.
Though they lounged in the mansion’s office, smoking overpriced cigars, Gideon’s voice boomed beyond the open door into the foyer where I leaned against the tiger’s ass. Hiding, because secrets were currency in Eastridge.
I hadn’t planned on spying during my weekly visit to my parents, but Gideon’s wife had the tendency to threaten Ma and Dad with unemployment. It would be nice to have the upper hand for once.
“Too much money is gone.” Gideon sipped his drink. “Winthrop Textiles will collapse. It may not be tomorrow or the next day, but it will happen.”
“Gideon.”
He interrupted Balthazar. “With the company folded, everyone we employ—the whole damn town—will lose their jobs. The savings they invested with us. Everything.”
Translation: my parents will be jobless, homeless, and broke.
“As long as there’s no evidence of embezzling,” Balthazar began, but I didn’t stick around to hear the rest.
Scum.
Ma and Dad devoted their entire savings to Winthrop Textiles stock. If the company collapsed, so did their futures.
I withdrew from the foyer as quietly as I had come, dipping past the kitchen and into the Winthrop’s laundry room, where Ma had left the old suit Gideon