Chapter 2: The Price of Greed
The city receded in the Mercedes’ rearview mirror, a glittering scar fading into the green blur of the highway. The silence in the car was absolute, a void I’d filled with half a bottle of imported vodka before I’d even pulled out of the garage. It was already working, that familiar softening at the edges of my vision, the hum in my veins replacing the sharper thrum of anxiety. The beach house wasn’t an escape. It was just a different backdrop for the same ritual.
My feet, bare as always, pressed against the cool pedals. I’d tossed my heels into the passenger footwell the moment I’d gotten in. The summer dress was short, the thin cotton brushing my thighs. The air conditioning whispered against my skin, already flushed from the alcohol. I needed this. Craved the blunt-force comfort of it. The memory of the previous night—Ruby’s gloating, Mother’s diamond bracelet catching the light like a guillotine blade—was a raw, pulsing thing behind my eyes. The drink smothered it, turned it into a muffled, bearable ache.
I pulled up the long, crushed-shell driveway just as the sun was beginning to bleed into the horizon, painting the sky in violent oranges and purples. The house was a low-slung, modern thing of glass and weathered wood, built on stilts overlooking the private stretch of sand. It smelled of salt and money. My uncle David was on the deck, waving a barbecue spatula like a scepter. He was my mother’s younger brother, but they shared nothing but blood. His smile was genuine, worn into the corners of his eyes by sun and something like actual contentment.
“Scarlett!” he called out as I slipped from the car, the crushed shell sharp and warm under my bare soles. “Look at you. You driving like that?”
“Like what?” I smiled, the expression feeling loose on my face. I grabbed my overnight bag and the heavy, precious canvas tote that held my supplies: two more bottles of vodka, a handle of gin, and the fizzy, fruity mixer that helped it all go down easier. The bag clinked a sweet, promising song as I walked.
He came down the steps, giving me a one-armed hug that smelled of charcoal and cedar.“Just checking. You look… flushed. Long drive?”
“A bit.” I leaned into the hug, a brief, solid warmth that felt alien and good. “Where are the terrors?”
As if summoned, two small blurs erupted from the side of the house. My cousins, Leo and Mia, seven and five, coated in a fine layer of sand and sunscreen. They crashed into my legs with force.
“You’re here!” Leo yelled.
“Did you bring presents?” Mia demanded, her small hands already patting my bag.
I laughed, a real one, startled out of me. The vodka glow made their energy cute instead of chaotic.“Maybe later. You two are filthy. Go rinse off before dinner.”
They groaned but obeyed, clattering up the deck stairs. David watched them go, his face softening. “They’ve been talking about you all week. ‘When’s Scarlett coming? Will she let us stay up?’”
“We’ll see,” I said, following him inside. The interior was all airy spaces and tasteful nautical touches, the polar opposite of our penthouse’s cold opulence. It felt lived-in. A half-finished puzzle sat on the coffee table, a forgotten action figure lay under the sofa. It was clean, but not perfectly so. A thin layer of dust coated the lower shelves, ignored.
My own apartment flashed in my mind—the takeout containers fossilizing on the counter, the fine grit on the floorboards I could feel between my toes when I walked. Three months.Maybe more. Here, the dust felt peaceful. Mine felt like surrender.
“Guest room’s all yours,” David said, pointing down a hall. “We’re doing burgers. Nothing fancy.”
“Fancy is overrated.” I meant it. In my room, a simple space with white linens and the sound of the waves through the open window, I unloaded my bottles onto the dresser. They stood like soldiers, gleaming in the twilight. I opened the vodka, took a long, direct pull from the bottle. It burned a clean path to my stomach, and the last of the drive’s tension melted away. I poured a generous measure into a water glass, added a splash of the pink mixer, and stirred it with my finger.
By the time I joined them on the deck, the food was ready. The sky was dark now, the first stars pricking through. I sat with my bare feet tucked under me, the cool glass in my hand. Leo and Mia chattered, fighting over who got more ketchup, telling me elaborate, nonsensical stories about their day. Their world was so simple. So loud and bright and uncomplicated. I watched them, a fond, distant ache in my chest.
“You’re quiet tonight, Scar,” David said, flipping a burger.
“Just tired.” I took a sip. The sweet, brutal tang of the vodka was a welcome anchor. “It’s nice here. Peaceful.”
“You should visit more. Get away from your mother’s… scene.” He chose the last word carefully.He knew. Not the details, but the shape of it. He’d tried, years ago, to say something. It had ended in a screaming match between him and Crimson, and a six-month silence. We never spoke of it directly.
“The scene pays for the dress,” I said lightly, gesturing to my cotton shift. It was a lie. The dress cost more than his car.
He gave me a look, but let it go. “How’s Ruby?”
“Ruby is Ruby.” I finished my drink, the ice cubes clinking hollowly. The warmth was spreading, softening everything. My balance tilted slightly as I reached for the bottle of gin I’d brought out with me. I poured a shot into my empty glass, then reconsidered and filled it halfway. “Thriving.”
Dinner was a noisy, messy affair. The kids got ketchup on everything, including my arm. I didn’t mind. The gin was doing its work, a slower, heavier burn than the vodka. My face felt hot. I caught my reflection in the dark glass of the sliding door: hair a tangled crimson cascade, eyes overly bright, cheeks stained a deep, feverish pink. The haunted look was still there, but it was blurred now, wrapped in a warm, forgiving haze.
After dessert, David started a fire in the pit. Mia climbed into my lap, her hair smelling of marshmallow and clean cotton. I held her small, solid weight, my arm around her. Leo roasted a mallow to charcoal and insisted I try it. The burnt sugar taste mixed with the juniper on my tongue.This was good. This was pure. A piece of something real, something untainted. I clung to the feeling.
But the feeling began to shrink as the fire crackled. The warmth of the child in my lap, the murmur of David’s voice, the salt air—it all started to press in on me.It was too quiet. Too still. The memory of the previous night began to seep through the alcohol barrier: Ruby’s triumphant smirk, the cold weight of Mother’s new diamond on her wrist as she’d laid out the evening’s itinerary. Two “appointments.” Names, times, preferences. One liked to watch. The other liked to be reminded of his insignificance. My head had been pounding even then, the beginning of a low-grade hangover from the night before that never fully crested, just a persistent, dull throb behind the eyes. I’d poured a drink while she spoke, my hands steady only because I’d already had three.
I needed another. The peace was becoming a vacuum.
“I’m going to get a sweater,” I murmured to Mia, extricating myself. She protested sleepily.
Inside, the house was quiet. I went past the guest room, straight to the dresser. I didn’t bother with the glass this time. The bottle of vodka was cool and heavy in my hand. I tipped it back, drinking until my throat protested. The liquid heat surged, reclaiming me, pushing the quiet thoughts back under. This was better.This was safe.
When I returned to the deck, I brought the bottle with me. David’s gaze flicked to it, then to my face.He said nothing. The kids were fading, Leo’s head nodding against his father’s shoulder.
“I think it’s bedtime for these two,” David said softly. He gathered a sleepy Mia, shepherded a stumbling Leo inside. “You okay out here?”
“Perfect,” I said, my voice a little too bright, a little too slurry. The fire danced in my blurred vision. “Just gonna enjoy the fire.”
Alone, I drank more. The sound of the waves became a rhythmic roar. I peeled off my dress, letting it puddle on the deck chair. The night air was cool on my skin. I was in my bra and underwear, then just my underwear, the firelight painting gold shapes on my porcelain skin. It felt good.Free. This was what I needed. No performance, no script. Just the heat of the fire and the heat in my gut.
The world swayed gently. I tried to stand to get another log and my legs betrayed me, buckling. I caught myself on the arm of the Adirondack chair, laughing softly at the clumsiness. My balance was gone, surrendered completely. I sat back down, sprawling, and drank again.
The backdoor slid open. David stepped out, then stopped. His silhouette was still against the light from inside. I didn’t cover up. What was the point? He’d seen me like this before, on other visits when I’d drunk too much. The first time he’d been shocked, had tried to cover me with a blanket. Now, he just looked tired.Sad.
“Scarlett,” he said, his voice gentle.
“Hey.” I waved the bottle at him. It was half-empty. Or half-full. A philosophical question for another time.
He walked over, took the bottle from my hand, and set it on the ground. He sat on the edge of the other chair, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. He stared into the fire for a long time. The only sounds were the crash of the surf and the pop of the embers.
“This isn’t living,” he said finally, his voice quiet but clear.
“Feels like it from here.” My words were thick.“Does it? Look at you.” He didn’t sound angry. Just defeated. “You’re a ghost, Scarlett. A beautiful, brilliant ghost. My sister is sucking the life out of you and you’re helping her do it because you think this,” he gestured at the bottle, at my near-nakedness, “is the only thing that makes it bearable.”
A spike of cold anger cut through the haze. “You don’t know anything about it. You have your simple little life out here. Your burgers and your bedtime stories. It’s easy for you to judge.”
“It’s easy for me to see!” he shot back, the volume making me flinch. “You were ten years old when you told me you wanted to be a marine biologist. You cried for a week when that turtle with the plastic straw in its nose died. That person is still in there. Buried under all this… this poison.”
The marine biologist. I’d forgotten. The memory was a shard of glass, sharp and sudden. I saw the turtle on the news, my small, furious tears. The feeling was so vast, so raw. I couldn’t access that kind of feeling anymore. It would shatter me.
I reached for the bottle again. He let me take it. My hands trembled so badly I could barely get it to my lips. I drank, washing the memory away.
“Please, Scar,” David whispered, his voice cracking. “Let me help you. Get away from her. From all of it. You can stay here. We’ll figure it out.”
The offer hung in the salt-tinged air. It was a lifeline, thrown across a chasm I’d spent years widening. I could see it. Waking up to the sound of the gulls, not the buzz of my encrypted phone. The smell of coffee and sunscreen, not expensive perfume and stale champagne. Simplicity.Safety.
I thought of the quiet. The dust on the shelves. The terrifying, yawning emptiness of a day without a schedule, without a purpose, without the sweet, obliterating promise of the next drink. The raw, sober moments between waking and the first sip. That was the real horror.
I thought of the money. The weightless silk, the cold jewels, the power in a predator’s gaze when you held the leash. The rush of being desired, paid for, worshipped. The glorious, numbing high that started in a bottle and ended somewhere in the tangled sheets of a stranger’s penthouse.
I took another long pull. The vodka was my answer. It was my truth.
“I am away from her,” I said, my voice a low, deliberate slur. “I’m right here. And I’m fine.” I stood up, the world canting violently. I grabbed the chair for support, my bare feet slipping on the smooth wood of the deck. I was completely naked now, I realized dimly. The firelight played over my body, a spectacle of ruined beauty. “I’m going to bed.”
He didn’t try to stop me. He just sat there, his head in his hands, a silhouette of grief against the dying fire.