I Refused to Pay Off My Brother’s Debt

Logan Whitaker has spent years carrying his family: after his younger brother Dylan Whitaker vanished with $30,000 swindled from their parents through a forged college acceptance letter, Logan used his savings to open a convenience store for Patricia and Thomas Whitaker, whose health had collapsed under the strain. He works overtime through the holidays so they can live more comfortably.

Then his mother calls, claiming his father needs emergency heart surgery and demanding six hundred thousand dollars. Logan knows the local hospital cannot perform such operations, and he drives seventeen hours home to find his father smoking outside the store, very much not dying. Inside, Dylan is back, lounging with his phone, and the truth spills out: he has run up an eight hundred thousand dollar online gambling debt, and his parents have been trying to trick Logan into paying it off. When Logan refuses, his father slaps him and calls him heartless.

Standing in the store he built, Logan must decide how much of himself he is still willing to give to a family that has already chosen whom it values.