Fucking Rich People

Jade had never seen a house this big, in person of course. This was the kind of thing out of movies or reality tv shows about billionaires, not the kind of place Jade would ever imagine herself being. They had been picked up from the airport by a mysterious driver with black sunglasses and a car to match. He didn’t say a single word on the drive. Shockingly, the longest part of it all was the driveway that came off the main road and led them to the house; the main house, at least. The drive included going past a golf course and a much smaller guest house. Jade marveled as she watched the grounds move past them. Her awe was minimal compared to what she felt when she saw the main house just beyond the trees. 

There was a large, perfectly green lawn in the front and a towering house just beyond that with brick and masonry making up the outside along with walls of windows that reflected the harsh light of the afternoon. There was a large patio with a lengthy pool and tons of the same blue chairs that surrounded the outdoor bar and the table near the pool. Jade was in disbelief that this was even real. She swore they had just stepped onto a movie set and maybe they had. Rich people are always a little crazy. 

“The reading of the will will be in the main living room, your brother is already waiting.” Those were the first words the driver had said to them. Jade stopped listening after the word brother. 

Jade turned to her wife, who was in the seat next to her. She was already opening the door to climb out before the car came to a full stop. Jade scooted to her wife’s side of the car and exited out the same door. 

“Brother?” She shut the door behind her, perhaps with too much force because Olivia was looking at the door and then at her looking like a school teacher ready to reprimand her. But Jade continued to talk, “You have a brother?” 

“He and I haven’t talked since long before you and I met.” Olvia tried to sound comforting but Jade was still standing next to the car, arms crossed, asking for more of an explanation with the raise of her eyebrows. 

“We have been married for two years and you just didn’t mention a brother or a billionaire grandpa?” Jade prodded at her for anything more. To Jade this was fascinating, for Olivia this was a part of her life she wanted to forget. Jade had known about her parents and knew they died in a car accident many years ago, but a brother was brand new information to her. 

“Technically a millionaire but he came pretty close to the billions.” The driver handed Olivia her small purse and she tossed it over her shoulder as maids carried the rest of their belongings inside. 

“This way,” The driver instructed and began to lead them inside the monstrosity of a home. 

“What the fuck, Liv?” Jade motioned to all that surrounded them, at the vase and the painting in the foyer which most likely cost more than she earned in a year. 

“What? We're estranged, Jade, I never felt the need to bring it up.” Voices echoed through the foyer, sounding like they were in a room not far from where the two of them walked. As Olivia looked at their surrounding her face changed, features scrunching. “But now I’m thinking I should have said something.” 

“Oh, you think?” Jade wasn’t angry by all means, just more confused about the secret life her wife was hiding from her. 

They were led through the foyer into what Jade would assume was the main living room. She didn’t want to touch anything for fear that it would break and send her into crippling debt. There were a few people, some sitting, some standing. They were spread across the many pearly white couches, snacking on Hors D'oeuvres made of food Jade could not immediately recognize and wearing clothing from brands she probably couldn’t pronounce. 

A man stood in a crisply ironed shirt tucked into a pair of perfect slacks and shoes that had to be the leather of some exotic and now dead animal. His dark brown hair was long on the top and short on the sides, slicked back with so much gel it looked crunchy to the touch. But truthfully, he was beautiful with his long nose, round eyes, and full, rosy, lips. Jade only thought that because of how strikingly similar he looked like her wife and her wife was the most beautiful woman on the planet. 

“Sister,” he smiled and pulled Olivia into a hug, which she only partly returned. 

“Owen.” Her voice was lazy in the attempt to greet her brother. 

Then he turned to Jade, “Who is this?” 

“My wife, Jade,” Olivia answered. 

“It's nice to meet you.” Jade stretched out a hand, expecting a handshake but got a glance at the extended hand instead before he turned his back to her to face the open room. 

“The reading of the will can begin now,” he said to a woman standing at the front of the room and walked away. 

“Oh, he's pleasant,” Jade whispered. 

The woman began, but there wasn’t much for her to say, “All of Marco Delgaudio’s assets, including all his property and the 367 million dollars left behind will go to his granddaughter, Olivia Delgaudio. That is all.” 

All the eyes in the room all heavily fell on Olivia. 

Olivia was perplexed. She couldn’t stop pacing in their room, reading the continents of the will over and over again, looking for the mistake that said everything belonged to her brother Owen and not to her. But there was none. 

Jade was trying to convince her that this was a good thing, they were in desperate need of money and it magically fell into their lap, just like they dreamt of. Olivia reminded Jade that three hundred and sixty-seven million was a bit more than the thirty thousand they were in actual need of. No matter what Jade said she could not convince her wife of the good in this. All Olivia saw was the doom of her family’s life falling onto her shoulders after she tried so hard to escape them. 

Then she stumbled onto another problem; how the money became hers in the first place. The lawyer had told them that the will was altered a few months before her grandfather’s death. Olivia figured there had to be a reason that her grandfather didn’t want Owen getting any of the money or assets and Olivia swore that she would figure it out. And for Jade, she just wanted to go home and take a swim in hundred dollar bills simply because she could do that now. 

Against Jade’s wishes, they split up that night. Jade took the east wing of the house and Olivia, the north. There was a small gathering to honor the life of Marco Delgaudio so it wasn’t odd to find people wandering around the massive house. But each person Jade passed gave her an odd look, most likely wondering who she was and what she was doing in this house. 

Jade came across a room that was isolated from the rest of the bedrooms, being the only one of the seven to be in the east wing. The second she opened the door she knew where she was. The smell of the old man radiated through the room but there was a hit of something fancy there, like hemorrhoid cream and Prada perfume. It was clear the room had been cleaned. The bed was tucked far too neatly for it to be anyone else other than someone who makes beds for a living and the clothes in the closet seemed to be steamed then hung. 

Jade wandered into the bathroom. Never had she seen a bathtub so grand. It was a canopy style with four pillars made from marble and there were three whole steps just to get into the bath. There was a large counter that ran along the center of the room. On Top of the counter, in between two sinks, there was a tray with an array of different medicine bottles, some over the counter like Benadryl and ibuprofen but there were some prescribed bottles as well. Jade picked one up and studied the label of each bottle. The third one she picked up read ‘nitroglycerin’ but a glance at the continents in the bottle told her otherwise. Nitroglycerin is a small white pill and since the prescription is 0.6mg it would have the number 6 stamped onto one side but when she took one pill and let it fall into her palm, immediately the shape was different. Stamped onto this oval-shaped pill was b 861 150. Upon a Google search, she learned that this was Flecainide and it is used to treat abnormally fast heart rates. Wikipedia told her it is to only be used to treat dangerous arrhythmias and severe symptoms can be cardiac arrest, arrhythmias, and heart failure. 

The bottle slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor, bouncing across the tile like runaway marbles. Jade ran from the room and was off to find Olivia. Somewhere in what she would assume was the middle of the house, they collided, nearly knocking a painting off the wall as a much smaller Olivia was shoved backward by the force. 

“My brother is broke,” Olivia said, placing her hands on Jade’s shoulders to stabilize her. “All the money he got from my parents is gone and he was relying on the money our grandpa was going to pass down to him. My grandpa must have figured this out and that is why he changed the will so Owen wouldn’t blow all his money.” 

Jade wondered how one could blow three hundred and sixty-seven million dollars but rich people are capable of anything. “Your grandpa was taking Flecainide which can cause heart failure. Someone must have switched his nitroglycerin out for that, knowing it would kill him.” 

“But he already had heart problems. It runs in the family. Unless someone was looking to speed along the process. But who would want to kill him?” 

“I don’t know, maybe your broke brother who requires millions of dollars.” 

“My brother didn’t murder our grandpa.”

“Olivia!” Owen’s voice startled them both, that and the sheer anger that came from it. Both of them stood there, staring at each other with wide eyes. It wasn’t until Owen yelled again, louder this time, closer, that they broke into a run in the opposite direction. Feeling like they were running in circles until they stumbled into the main living room and dove behind the couch nearest the door. 

“Do you notice something strange?” Jade asked. 

Olivia responded with a shake of her head. 

“No one is here. The guests, the staff, that lawyer, the driver. No one.” 

“Olivia?” Owen’s voice was close now. He had stopped yelling and was trying a more sympathetic plea. 

“Your crazy brother is going to kill us,” Jade whispered. 

“He is not going to kill us. We can just give him the money.” 

“Oh because he seems like the kind of rational person to ask for something he wants. And we need that money too.” 

“Not all of it, he won’t even notice the missing thirty thousand dollars.” 

“Babe, I love you so much but unfortunately we won’t be able to use that money if we’re dead.” Owen’s footsteps were coming down the stairs now, loudly echoing on the wood so he couldn’t hear their whispering voices. 

“Fucking rich people!” Olivia hissed. Jade tried not to cringe at the irony of that sentence. This was Olivia's family. She grew up with that man. They were raised by the same people but they couldn’t be more different. 

“Olivia?” Owen was in the living room now, a few feet from the couch they hid behind, backs pressed into the cream velvet. In the reflection of the floor-to-ceiling windows was Owen with a fairly large kitchen knife in the white-knuckle grip of his hand. 

“You know, thinking about it, he did drown our dog in the pool when he was ten,” Olivia casually admitted. The panic that choked Jade by the throat was so intense it might kill her. Though, that might be faster than whatever Olivia’s psychotic brother had in store for them. “Maybe he is crazier than I remember.” Jade was glad her wife was finally coming to her senses, but perhaps it was too late. 

“There you are,” Owen said and the panic sent them both running. 

Jade was behind Olivia, ushering her towards the door when a hand reached into her hair and yanked her backward. Olivia stopped in her tracks as the kitchen knife pressed into Jade’s neck. 

“Owen! We will give you the money. You don’t have to do this,” Olivia pleaded. 

“We will give you anything, please,” Jade begged. Owen pulled her backward, to face him, knife still at her neck and back now turned to his sister. Jade winced as his fist tightened around her hair. Her body was wholly aware of moving and the consequences if she did so much as an inch, she would bleed out on the hand-woven, Persian rug. 

“I don’t believe you!” His body shook at the anger of his scream. Wetness trickled down her cheek, making her flinch and, in turn, pushing the knife a centimeter into her skin. The warm slick blood trickled down her chest. 

In one moment, Owen was standing over her, seething in anger, and in the next second he was on the floor, broken shards of a vintage porcelain vase sat scattered around his limp body. Olivia stood in front of Jade, eyes wide, hands shaking at her side. Jade reached for them in an attempt to calm her and placed a kiss on her forehead, which only confirmed her entire body was trembling in adrenaline and fear. 

“Did I kill him?” Olivia asked, her voice strained as if she were forcing words to leave her mouth. 

“No baby, I don’t think so. But when he wakes we shouldn’t be here.” 

Olivia nodded and they dialed 911 as they put as much distance between themselves and the horrible mansion as they could. 

Owen was fine and Jade felt guilt in wishing something bad had happened to him. He got six months probation and was able to stay in his dead grandpa’s house. Jade also wished that his ghost would linger and haunt Owen. He immediately blew through the couple million Olivia had given him out of guilt, purely on paying lawyers and bribes. The couple themselves put away a couple million in savings and donated the rest to organizations and charities of their choosing, earning them an article in the New York Times. For the most part, they returned to their quiet lives, looking forward to their new journey. 

They bought a new house, a spacious three-bedroom with a nearly complete nursery. Emphasis on nearly, because Olivia was bound to have this child any day now yet she was still finding projects to do to make the room perfect. 

She was going to be a girl and the room had a theme of pale yellow and animals and clouds. Olivia was standing in the center of the room looking at the crib when Jade entered and wrapped her arms around her stomach, placing her palms on the large bump. 

“All that for a fucking kid,” Olivia said, running her fingertips over the wooden railing of the crib. 

“Hey, she’s going to be one amazing kid,” Jade replied. 

“And we owe her to my murdered grandpa.” Though there was never enough to prove that Owen had killed Marco Delgaudio. But they both had a feeling that he paid off people to destroy all evidence of the pills. They also suspected that he had paid off whoever had done the autopsy to rule his death as natural causes and leave the Flecainide out of the coroner's report. Rich people, right? 

“You’re the one who wished the money would just fall into our lap,” Jade reminded her. When they started trying to have a baby it stopped pretty early on when they learned exactly how much money it would cost and how much of that they didn’t have. Olivia would give into a make-believe world where they just magically had the money and a happy little family. It seems she wished too hard. 

“Right, it's all my fault. My crazy family and their crazy money.” 

But her crazy family and their crazy money answered all of their dreams, in a strange, rich people are fucking crazy, kind of way.