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publish date:
2026-04-19 19:17:55
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Tempted by my brother-in-law. ONE
ONEPOV: HazelShe closed the door behind me.Iris was asleep in the travel cot Kaden had produced from the same mysterious cupboard as the high chair, tucked in with her rabbit and her complete indifference to anything the adults in the room were carrying. I looked at her for a moment before I sat down because she was the easiest thing in the room to look at and I needed a second.My mother sat on the edge of the bed.I sat in the chair across from her.The room was small and warm and had the quality of a space that had been briefly inhabited by someone who knew how to make anywhere feel like somewhere. She had put things on the surfaces. A book. A glass of water. Iris's extra blanket folded on the chair before I moved it. Small domestic anchors the way she had always made them.I waited.She looked at her hands."When I was working for Vera," she said, "I was not just in the records office. She brought me into other parts of the house. Gave me work that was more complex. I was good
Tempted by my brother-in-law. ELEVEN
ELEVENPOV: HazelI pulled over again.Nikolai did not say anything. He had stopped commenting on the pulling over. It was becoming a pattern on this particular stretch of road and we both understood why.The solicitor waited."She contributed to the account for eleven years," I said."Yes," the solicitor said. "The first contribution was made fourteen days after your mother's departure from Sky Shade City. Every year after that on the same date. Consistent amounts, increasing incrementally, never missing a year.""Without my mother knowing," I said."Your mother knew," she said. "She was informed of each contribution through a separate channel. She did not refuse them."I looked at the dashboard.My mother had known Vera was contributing. She had sat across from me in this car and on that restaurant table and in Vera's library and she had not said it. She had let me find out from a solicitor in Edinburgh on a mountain road at seven in the evening."Was there a message attached to the
Tempted by my brother-in-law. KADEN
KADENPOV: HazelI stood up.Not a decision. Just what my body did when it needed to think and sitting felt like accepting something before I understood it.Nikolai looked at me.I held the phone tighter."Say that again," I said."I was the one who brought your name to the table," Kaden said. "When the family was discussing the arrangement. Isabella had a list. Scott had suggestions. I had been watching you for two months before any of it was formalised.""Watching me," I said."You were working at the records office on the east side," he said. "The building the Varyn Group used for document storage. You came in twice a week. You were thorough and you were quiet and you did not treat the work like it was beneath you and you did not try to make yourself visible to anyone who passed through." He paused. "You were the opposite of everyone else in every room I walked into."I looked at the valley."You chose me," I said."I brought your name forward," he said. "I want to be precise about
Tempted by my brother-in-law. VALID
VALIDPOV: HazelI pulled over for the second time in two days.Not because my legs decided to this time. Because I needed to not be driving while I processed what the investigator had just said and the road ahead required more attention than I had available.I put the car in park.Nikolai was already looking at me."Put her on speaker," he said.I did."Miss Skai," Harris said. "Are you still there.""Yes," I said. "Say it again. What Reeve claimed.""He claims that the arrangement between you and Kaden Varyn was not entered into freely on your part," she said. "That there was a specific form of pressure applied to ensure your agreement. Not physical. Financial and circumstantial. He claims to have documentation supporting this.""What documentation," I said."Communications between Scott Varyn and a third party that outline the specific conditions created to make the arrangement appear to be your only viable option," she said. "Including the management of your mother's situation in
Tempted by my brother-in-law. NOTE
NOTEPOV: HazelI opened the door.My mother was standing in the corridor in the clothes she had slept in with Iris on her hip and a piece of paper in her free hand and the expression she had when she was deciding how she felt about something before she let herself feel it.I took the note.Nikolai appeared behind me.My mother looked at him and then at me and did not say anything about him being in my room at six in the morning, which was itself a kind of statement.I read the note.Daniel's handwriting. Neat and slightly cramped, the handwriting of someone who had learned it carefully rather than naturally.He wrote that he was sorry for leaving without saying goodbye in person. He wrote that he had thought about staying and he had decided that staying right now was the wrong move, that a house full of people who were all trying to figure out what they were to each other was not the place to add the specific complication of a father who had been absent for twenty one years. He wrote
Tempted by my brother-in-law. EDWARD
EDWARDPOV: HazelI looked at Nikolai.He was watching my face and I turned the phone slightly toward him so he could hear and he went very still when the name registered."Mr Marsh," I said. "How did you get this number.""The story that ran tonight," he said. "Your name is in it. I found a contact through the journalist listed on the piece and she gave me this number after I explained who I was." He paused. "I hope it is not an intrusion.""It is midnight," I said."I know," he said. "I am sorry for the hour. I have been trying to decide whether to make this call for two days and I ran out of reasons not to."His voice was steady and older than I expected and had the quality of someone who chose words carefully not because he was managing something but because he understood their weight."What can I do for you," I said."I read the story that ran this morning," he said. "The main story. About Reeve and Cardivance and what was done to my daughter's treatment." A pause. "I have been t
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