“Stop overreacting, you’re ruining her day!” my mother hissed, grabbing my hair and pushing me over the balcony railing at my sister’s party. I blacked out. When I woke up, the upscale venue was surrounded by federal agents, and my mother was sobbing on her knees while my sister held a document and begged me…

my eyes, her lips curling into a smile made of frostbite.

“I thought it was fitting,” Patricia’s voice rang out, melodic and laced with unadulterated malevolence. “Why would a mongrel bred by slum-raised parents require fine porcelain? I simply provided a vessel suited to his pedigree.”

Robert broke into a violent, hacking cough at the far end of the continue reading …