Wilde’s End (The Wilde Men #1)

Prologue

HUDSON

T here are only so many times the sky can fall before I get tired of hearing about it.

My head is light and wobbly as I force the key into my front door and give it a hard jiggle until the lock springs free. I’ve gotten good at tuning out my brothers’ voices, but with my mindset lately, everything is irritating as fuck.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I drunkenly mutter as my twin brothers and I stumble into my apartment after a night out. It’s getting to be a regular thing with us, and while I love that we’re close, it’s starting to feel … repetitive. Boring. Bland.

Work all week, write ourselves off on the weekend in an attempt to forget about everything.

“I’m just saying,” Hartwell slurs over one of his usual rants, kicking out of his shoes and almost flinging himself through the drywall for his efforts.

“What’s the point of living? The more money we make, the more expensive everything gets.

The capitalist rat wheel keeps spinning faster, and we’re running as hard as we can to try to keep up.

” He stumbles a few steps as he fishes in his pocket for a joint.

It’s all bent out of shape, but he tugs it out, clamps it between his lips, and lights up.

I don’t like the way the smell creates a longing tug in my gut.

“Told you not to do that in here,” I grumble, but considering I’m seeing two of him—and not because he’s a twin for once—I’m not in a position to make him stop.

Kennedy goes to my fridge and pulls out the pitcher of margarita he made before we left. “Any takers?”

I wave him off while Hart falls backward onto my couch without an answer and blows smoke at my ceiling. His long, lean form is the complete opposite of how thick Kennedy has gotten, and for identical twins, they’re as opposite as it comes.

Where Hart is a heavy, low-lying storm cloud, Kennedy is sunshine.

“Why is everything so shit?” Hart asks, sounding more like he’s talking to the smoke unfurling above him than either of us. “Life is all gray, and when I look forward … more gray. Gray, gray, gray. And shitty people getting shittier.”

I lift my eyebrows at Kennedy, who shoves Hart’s legs off the couch and takes the spot they were in.

“You’re fucked,” Kennedy says lightly. “If you’re unhappy, fix it.”

The look Hart gives Kennedy could cut glass. “When we retire with absolutely nothing to our names after a lifetime of working our asses off, I’m going to tell you to be happy. Just be happy , Kenny.” He snorts and stubs his joint out on my coffee table.

“Do that again and you’ll be lucky to reach retirement age.”

Hart’s bored voice answers me. The one that would suck the happiness from the room if it had the energy to bother. “Threatening to kill me doesn’t have the effect you want it to have. ”

My hands itch to close over his shoulders and shake him.

If it wasn’t for Kennedy, I probably would have.

He’s the mediator between Hart being so fucking bitter about everything and my extremely short fuse toward it all.

There’s only so much I can do for him though.

We started Bell Building—named after our last name, Bellamy—with Hart in mind, as a way to motivate him and stop with the cynical talk, and it’s doing better than we predicted.

We’re pulling in good money, but of course, it’s not enough. Nothing ever makes that shithead happy.

Lately, I worry he’s rubbing off on me. I’m in a toxic on-again, off-again relationship that I can’t find my way out of, I drink to numb the negative thoughts, and I worry if I keep down this path, I’ll end up in the same dead end that I finished high school with.

Still, I shove my attitude aside and try to force positivity for both of our sakes. “When you have your own place, you’ll think differently.”

He lets out a hollow laugh and tosses his phone my way.

It clatters to the floor, but when I turn it over, it thankfully hasn’t broken.

“I’m signed up for every real estate alert within an hour’s driving distance.

Tell me when I’ll be able to afford even a piece of shit at those prices.

I’m still not convinced the one I was sent this morning wasn’t a cardboard box. ”

I unlock his phone and scroll through the email alerts he’s been getting. Each listing I glimpse only proves his point because shit on a stick, these prices can’t be real. If only one of us owned Bell, we’d be able to buy something livable, but between the three of us?

California is fucking crippling.

I scroll back up to the cardboard box he was complaining about, trying to figure out how it justifies a high-six-figure price tag.

At first, I think I’m so fucking drunk that I’m reading it wrong, but I shove down the vodka haze and force myself to focus.

The numbers don’t change, and I’m positive that’s one of the most run-down houses in existence.

“Wilde’s End,” I read aloud, tapping on the link and opening the whole listing.

I skim through the details and pull up short. Then I reread it. Then I forcefully shake my head and shove down more of the vodka haze before I try again.

Wilde’s End is the perfect project for an investor who wants to be able to say they own their own town!

“Town …” I squeeze my eyes closed and open them again. The words haven’t changed. “Kennedy, read this. I’m drunk.”

He grins over the pitcher of margarita, liquid dripping from his dark blond moustache—the only facial feature that differentiates him from Hart—and barely catches the phone I peg at his head.

“Jesus, you almost killed me with this thing.” He squints one eye closed to try and focus on the screen.

“Okay, I’m drunk too. Something about a town? ”

Hart snatches his phone back and skims the listing. “It’s a town for sale. And?”

“And?” A spark of excitement hits. “Holy shit, we could afford that!”

I only get a blank expression back.

“Listen, if we buy a whole fucking town, we can do up those shit boxes and sell them off one by one. It’s like a gold mine.”

Hart’s pale green gaze flicks back to the listing. “It’s far away.”

“We don’t have to live there forever. We’ll leave Sonny to manage our Bell contracts, move to that place while we work, do it up, then sell it on.”

“What’s it called?” Kennedy asks, pulling out his phone.

“Wilde’s End. ”

He spends a few minutes looking it up, and I’m not sure if it’s the alcohol or this incredible spike of excitement that’s making me all head spinny, but this could actually be it. The thing that pulls us out of this rut and gives Hart some goddamn purpose in his life.

I crawl across the floor to steal the phone back.

The listing shows a few ugly houses down one side of the street and a few ugly shopfronts down the other.

When they say small town, they obviously mean it, but the land size is enormous.

We could build whatever the fuck we wanted, wherever the fuck we wanted …

right? I don’t actually know any of the logistics, but if we own the town, that sounds pretty fucking cool.

Before I stop to think it through, I send an email with my details, almost going cross-eyed with how close I bring the phone to my face to make sure I’ve typed my shit out right.

“I’m not finding anything on it,” Kennedy says. “Think it’s a scam?”

“The real estate is legit.” I think. It looks familiar. I need my brain to brain better.

Hart chuckles darkly and folds his arms over his face. “Wake me when you two are done with this.”

I thump him on the thigh, but he ignores me. “For that, I’m not renaming the street Hartwell after you.”

“Oh no …” he monotones.

“And you’re getting the smallest of the houses.”

“The houses we won’t ever have.”

A flicker of bullheadedness hits me. “You don’t think we’ll do this.”

“I think you get excited over things and they fizzle out.”

“What about our building company, dick?”

“That was all Kenny.”

“Fuck you. ”

He flips me off and doesn’t look up.

“I’m going to buy this stupid place, and you’re going to be sorry.”

He peels one arm back and pins me in a stare. “It’s an abandoned piece of shit in the middle of nowhere. Why would you even want to?”

Abandoned? Okay, I definitely missed that part. This would be the perfect time to pretend to pass out or play it off as a joke, or … or …

Hart’s lips twist in a humorless smirk. “Exactly. All action, no thoughts.”

I shove to my feet and almost launch over the coffee table but catch myself in time. “We’re doing this.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We are.”

Kennedy thrusts the pitcher into the air, margarita sloshing down his arm. “Hell yes, Hudson.”

“Let’s buy a town!”

“Let’s buy a town ! ”

Hart only sighs and covers his face again.

I help Kennedy finish the pitcher as we toast to our newest business venture.

A whole town all for us. This is exactly what we need.