Chapter 1
Nathan
Hey Nathan, it’s me. I know you don’t want to hear from me so I’ll stop bothering you after this. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday…
My brother’s voice dropped off, but the voicemail message didn’t stop. My gut clenched as I heard his voice become more uneven.
I really miss you, big brother. I just…I…
Another pause had me dashing at the tears that threatened to fall.
I’d made the mistake of hitting the play button on the voicemail message while still sitting in my car after parking it in my driveway.
I’d had two new messages and had accidentally hit Brody’s message instead of my campaign manager’s, and the mistake was like a punch to the gut.
Because I always needed to steel myself before I let myself listen to my twin’s voice, which was so much like my own.
Brody’s voice lost its luster as he blurted, I hope you’re okay. And with that, the message ended.
I wasn’t okay. Not even close.
But Brody didn’t need to know that. And he most definitely didn’t need to know how badly I wanted to hit that call back button and tell him how fucking sorry I was.
“Fuck,” I muttered to myself as I reached for the door handle. The message from my campaign manager could wait, because I needed a drink.
Or ten.
I climbed out of my car and wiped at my eyes.
Luckily, it was late and there weren’t any stray reporters lingering today.
Because I wasn’t sure I could paste the smile on my face that was a requirement for the camera that inevitably got shoved in your face, along with the microphone or tape recorder that was thrust so close to your mouth that you wondered if it shouldn’t have been required to buy you a drink first.
I loved coming home. It was one of the few places where I could just be Nathan instead of the various titles that I’d somehow managed to accrue, despite how very little I’d actually done with my life.
Candidate for Senator.
Son of Chandler Wilder, governor and political scion.
Former poster boy for the right-wing movement to Bring God Back to America.
Fuck the damn titles tonight. I’d turned thirty today, and the only person I would have even considered celebrating that milestone with was over two thousand miles away.
Because I’d driven him away.
I managed to remember to lock my car as I made my way up the path leading to my front door. I would have liked to park my car in the garage, but it was full of campaign paraphernalia that I hadn’t been able to find the time to get moved to my new campaign headquarters in the heart of Charleston.
I’d bought the little Cape Cod home earlier in the year after I’d escaped the stronghold of the right-wing movement my father had begun building in Columbia, the capital of South Carolina.
I’d left my law practice, too, which had pissed my father’s former General Counsel off to no end, since he’d gotten me the job at the prestigious firm shortly after I’d graduated from law school.
Yeah, the plan had always been for me to get into politics, but I’d kind of fucked those plans up when I’d abruptly turned my back on my father and his constituents to run as a Democrat instead.
To this day, I received countless calls from endless high-ranking officials in the Southern Baptist community who were trying to usher me back into the fold.
They’d even suggested how I could spin my explanation for the sudden, albeit temporary, switch in my political affiliations.
Blame it on Brody.
I’d told them what they could do with that idea, and for a good ol’ Southern boy, I’d chosen some pretty colorful language to get my point across. Didn’t mean they didn’t stop trying, though.
And they’d stepped up their game.
The emails had started over six months ago. They’d been a nuisance at first, and I’d dismissed them as just another incensed member of my father’s constituency. But they’d taken a dark turn when they’d mentioned Brody.
And an even darker one when things had gone beyond just veiled threats in writing.
I shot a glance over my shoulder at my car and reminded myself that I really did need to get my garage cleared out.
I’d already had to spend thousands of dollars in body work and new tires to fix the damage that my apparent stalker had inflicted upon the vehicle a few weeks ago.
Luckily, the damage had occurred while my car had been parked overnight at a parking garage near my campaign office, so I had no reason to believe the asshole had my address.
Even the possibility that he did had me hurrying my step. I was a big guy and could handle myself well enough if push came to shove, but I knew unbalanced guys brought guns and knives to fistfights. Whoever he was, he wasn’t going to play fair, and I needed to remember that.
It wouldn’t stop me, like he was clearly so intent on doing, but it would make me more vigilant.
The night air was quiet around me as I unlocked the front door. I lived on a quiet street in a family-friendly neighborhood, and by the looks of things, most of my neighbors were already asleep. Not surprising, considering it was well after eleven.
I’d been thirty for almost twenty-four hours and I hadn’t even realized it until I’d heard Brody’s message. If I was any kind of brother, I’d at least text him to tell him happy birthday.
But I’d lost that privilege a long time ago.
Even if the circumstances surrounding my life didn’t pose a threat to Brody, I still wouldn’t have called him.
Yeah, he’d hinted at wanting to try to rebuild our relationship when I’d gone up to Dare, Montana to warn him about the potential threat against him, but it wasn’t something I was even considering.
For many reasons.
But mostly because I’d fucked up any chance I had at being a brother to Brody when I’d betrayed him twelve years ago.
Despair lurched through me as I remembered that night, and I quickly shoved open the door. I needed that damn drink. I hurried to the alarm panel in the front hallway and was already punching in my code when I realized it hadn’t sounded.
Fuck, I’d forgotten to set it. That was what week after week of eighteen-hour days got you.
A shitty memory, a refrigerator with a couple of Chinese takeout cartons and a bottle of ketchup in it, and a house that relied on others like a gardener and housekeeper to take care of it so the press wouldn’t start writing articles speculating your body was rotting away inside because the grass was more than ankle high.
I returned to the front door and locked it, then went straight for the small bar in my living room.
The only light I turned on was the one above the bar.
I searched out the whiskey and grabbed a glass before heading to my favorite leather chair.
It was ridiculous that I had such an ornate living room setup when all I did was sit in the single chair which was pointed at the flat screen TV on the wall.
But I’d let Virginia do the decorating, and my only condition had been that the furniture had to be masculine.
She hadn’t liked that, of course, since she’d fully expected to share the house with me someday, at least for as long as it took to buy something bigger and fancier.
She hadn’t liked a lot of things.
But the game changer had been the day I’d done the unthinkable and stood before God and much of America and denounced my father’s stance on gay marriage, the very thing that had made him a household name and catapulted him, and me by extension, to the forefront of the right-wing movement.
Virginia had been certain it was some kind of joke or temporary act of rebellion, but when she’d placed the blame on Brody, saying he’d somehow used the devil to influence me, I’d kicked her ass to the curb, not caring one whit about what the press would say about it.
I dropped down into the chair, but didn’t bother with the TV.
I got enough of the news during my daily briefings with my campaign manager, Preston Bell.
He wanted to make sure I had answers to any and every controversy that cropped up.
The man was a slave to talking points, while I had no problem with veering off topic if the situation called for it.
I’d told Preston that from the beginning when he’d approached me with an offer to run my newly founded campaign.
I’d been a joke at the time, so it wasn’t like I’d had a lot of offers.
Democrats had been suspicious of my switch in positions, and I’d become a pariah within even the most liberal of Republican circles.
Preston had claimed the whole thing would be his crowning glory in a long-running career of getting people into office.
But I’d suspected the truth…the man liked what I stood for.
Because, despite all the things I did to drive him crazy, he never balked when it came to making it clear to voters what I stood for.
He never tried to have me compromise in order to save face with one group of voters at the sacrifice of another.
Simply put, he let me show people who I really was, which was all I’d ever wanted.
And since I was leading in the polls, I must have gotten something right.
I downed the whiskey in one shot and then filled the glass with two fingers of the amber liquid.
I wasn’t a big drinker, but tonight I was happy enough to get shit-faced.
Not enough that I wouldn’t be able to get up at five in the morning for my usual run and then head to the office, but enough that I didn’t have to worry about looking bleary-eyed on camera, since I’d told Preston not to schedule me for any interviews.