Stepbrother: No Boundaries Read Online Free Page B

anyway. There’s no point in me ever being there, if you want the truth. I’ve done all I can for the company, and now my employees handle everything while I take most of the money.
     
    Don’t feel bad or guilty – you started the company and you’re giving them jobs .
    I walk up Wall Street and have decided to take the subway. I always have a driver at my building but I passed him by today and nodded my head. He looked puzzled and I didn’t care. I just felt like being alone.
     
    Alone, until I get home to you .
    If she’s even home. How is she getting to me so fucking bad ? She never did this before, all those years I knew her… She’s still the same girl…
     
    I bury my leather gloved hands into the pockets of my black wool trench coat and head down the filthy steps into the rank stink of the train station. I wait for ten minutes as I listen in on conversations. Poor people stand next to me talking about hustling for money. One of them says he’s going to sell his rock CD to a big record label and is expecting a lot of money in the next month. I glance over at him and see that he looks like a bum. He’ll make it big , I think, and there’s no sarcasm in my thought.
     
    The 3 train barrels up and stops with a loud never-ending creak. I step on as the doors open and listen to the conductor’s voice, “Stand clear of the closing doors please.” He sounds tired and bored. He wants to go home and so do I.
     
    I sit there for a few minutes and it feels like a blur to me. Then the speedy train begins to slow down and I watch the blur of “72 nd street” etched on the walls of the station. I step off the train and walk slowly out of the station and up the steps. Traffic is loud and noisy and the snow has continued to accumulate since I left work. I’d say there’s about half an inch on the ground yet it hasn’t slowed traffic at all despite the frigid temperatures and frozen streets.
     
    Horns honk and tires screech and people scream and the voices and sounds are all intermingled and I don’t pick up on any in particular. I zone out and begin to walk east towards my penthouse condominium. I wonder if Miranda’s even home – I’d be bored too if I didn’t have to work, but who am I fooling? I don’t have to work anymore.
     
    She’s not there.
    I sit down on the couch and flip on the television after carefully placing my shoes on the rack by the door. As I sprawl my legs out I flip the remote to dim the windows and the noises and bright grayness of the day begins to dissipate at once. There’s a sitcom on but I flip to the Spanish channel even though I don’t know Spanish. I grab a cigar laying on the table and the pack of matches next to it. I scratch the match against the box and let it burn until the flame barely singes my finger.
    Good, I still feel pain .
    I light the cigar and suck in a thick fume of smoke then exhale it into the room. I don’t smoke in here but today’s an exception. Now if only I could have a scotch I’d be set, but I’m trying to cut down on my alcohol intake. The smoke tastes expensive and I don’t wonder what it’s doing to my lungs. I don’t smoke enough to wonder the repercussions of that.
     
    It’s a luxury cigar and I don’t remember where I got it, or what country it came from. All I know is that I’m enjoying it, and when I hear the door open and glance over to see Miranda coming in with three packs of groceries my heart warms up and my stiff expression relaxes. I think about scolding her for buying groceries herself; we have servants for that.
     
    Then I remember she’s not used to this lifestyle so I just smile. I know I was like her once, though it was so long ago I don’t remember. I remember bits and pieces of the poor lifestyle. Our folks had it rough, Miranda’s mom and my father. They got together when we were four. He was a factory worker and she was a retail manager. I’m twenty seven years old and I’ve been rich since I was twenty.