Billionaire Misery Read Online Free PDF

you a suitcase? You could keep it with you and tote it from place to place so much easier.”
    “No tears or rips,” Jessie giggled.
    Their laughter felt bittersweet. Craig stared up at the ceiling, one hand tucked comfortably behind his head. “What I hated most were the ones who really thought that they were making a difference by taking us in—and then never stopped talking about it. I can’t remember how many lectures I sat through from very well-meaning pompous assholes who only wanted to let me know how much of a difference they were making in my life.”
    Jessie nodded in agreement. “I had those lectures too. It always started off with them saying that they wanted to see kids like me excel, and that they knew I needed a chance in the world, and that they felt honored to be a part of it. That is until they shook off the platitudes and the reality sunk in that there was a pissed-off kid living under their roof who didn’t see it that way. I preferred the ones who were in it for the money; at least they were honest about it. One woman told me she’d lost her job and needed to pay her mortgage, so farming kids was her only option. She wasn’t a bad person, and she didn’t starve or beat us like some fosters did to other kids; she just didn’t care about anything but that check every month.”
    “I liked those kinds too,” Craig said, “Unless they wanted the money so bad they decided they had to cut the costs of raising us.”
    She locked eyes with him. Empathy stirred. “You had some bad ones too, huh?”
    He snorted. “Oh yeah. Maybe the worst ones were this couple over in Pine Grove, you know, the rich neighborhood? They took us in so they could parade us as their cause, and once we got out of the sight of their rich, fat friends, their charitable thoughts ended. We got one bowl of cereal in the morning, and a banana. Every day. If we were in school we got a sandwich, bologna on cheap bread with mustard whether we liked it or not for lunch. Dinner was whatever they could feed us for as cheap as possible.” He shook his head. “I never forgot that. They’d be in their fancy dining room, eating lobster, and the four of us, me, Morgan, Lisa, and this other kid, we’d be in the kitchen eating Hamburger Helper and canned beans. I think maybe that was when I really got how unfair life was for most people.”
    Jessie drew a hard breath. “Yeah, I think I figured that out when my dad’s crew turned on me and my mom, and put us out of the house.”
    Craig’s face wore a thunderstruck expression. “What?”
    She nodded. “Dad got the clubhouse, but it was under a company name to keep it safe in case of busts and stuff. So when he died—you know. The crew just wrote a deal with this bigwig dealer who took my dad out. Truth is, the crew wanted him gone because...well...” It didn’t matter if she told Craig the truth; he wouldn’t judge her for it. “He didn’t want to go into harder criminal shit.”
    “What? No!”
    “The guy he’d been running drugs for wanted a rival crew hit. Hard. Big Red said no. They killed him, supposedly, for sending in a light shipment, but we all knew what it was about.”
    Damn. That’s fucked up.”
    She nodded. “It was. They’re all in prison or dead now, though.” She didn’t even bother to hide the satisfaction in her voice.
    Craig squeezed her hand. “So...what happened to your mom?”
    She was supposed to be getting information from him, not telling him her life story, but their shared experiences had bonded them. That was dangerous, and she knew it all too well, but she still wanted to talk. “She was working a bunch of jobs. It was really hard in the city then. Tourism was down, and even when it was up it was seasonal, you know? So she had to work a lot of part-time jobs to keep us in a place and eating. One night she drove home after a fifteen-hour workday. Only, she never made it home. She fell asleep and ran off the road. She went into the culvert a