Chapter 1
KEATON
As the wheels of my brother’s jet lift off the ground beneath me, I replay the conversation I just had with my brothers over and over and over.
My younger brother, Brooks, and I picked up the call at the same time.
I was sitting on the balcony of my perfect apartment in perfect Malibu, figuring out how to save the world in yet another way.
Far, far away from New York and anything that would remind me that I am an Everett.
My older brother, Julian, was in the office of his Manhattan penthouse.
And the idiot that is Brooks? He was lying on a beach somewhere, drinking out of a fucking coconut.
“Do you ever work?” Julian asked him. He laughed and shrugged.
“What’s up, J?” I asked, ignoring both of them.
My anxiety had been killing me since Julian’s girlfriend called us earlier that day to tell us that we needed to answer a call that was going to come in from an unknown number.
“Why are you calling us from this number? And why did Sawyer have to tell us?”
“Boys, we’re in for it,” he told us. “And the only way out is if we’re together, and we take down the king.”
The king. He meant our father, Cato Everett, the third richest man on the entire fucking planet.
The man who gave us everything and never let us forget it.
The man who raised us not to take on the world but to boost him higher up, make him look like the loving, doting father and not like the ruthless man who treated our mothers like trash and paid for other people to help parent us.
When everything else in my life went down the drain, I got out of New York as fast as I possibly could.
I got to the West Coast and began dedicating my life—and my money—to undoing some of the things my father has spent his life doing.
He owns oil; I fund private climate change research and organizations.
He buys small businesses to squeeze the juice out of them before hanging them out to dry; I find the ones struggling to keep their doors open and pay their overhead for a year.
I might have his name, but I refuse to be a part of his “legacy.”
But now, it appears there is more to this than meets the eye—or the tabloids—with my father. He’s done things—terrible things—that he can’t undo and that cannot stay buried.
So here I am, on the way back to the very place that broke me.
I close my eyes as the plane lifts higher and higher, leaving my fortress of solitude farther and farther behind.
Getting closer to the fucked-up mess that is my family. The city where I lost everything.
Where I lost her.
When the plane finally lands, my brother already has a car waiting for me on the tarmac. I recognize the head of my brother’s security detail, Russ, and a new guy with him I’ve never seen before. They both nod in my direction, then Russ wraps me in a big hug and claps me on the back.
“Good to have you in town, Keat,” Russ says.
Then he stands back and points to the other guy.
“This is Mac. He’s been training with us for a few months.
He will be your detail while you’re in town.
” I roll my eyes and smile. I fucking hate having a security detail.
I hate that we think we are so goddamn important that we pay people to follow us around.
But my brothers and I are each worth more than the collective wealth of the fucking world.
So it’s an insurance thing instated by none other than Daddy Dearest.
“Good to meet you, Mac. I’ll try to behave while I’m here.” I shake his hand, and Russ scoffs.
“So, your brother’s place?” Russell asks as we all buckle into the big black Escalade. I think for a second. I’d love to stop by my favorite Thai restaurant, grab a six pack, and hole up in my apartment in SoHo, hiding away from the world.
But my brother needs me. They both do, even if Brooks is too ignorant to realize it yet. I sigh.
“Yeah. Let’s get to Julian’s.”
When the elevator doors open to my brother’s penthouse, I take it all in. I don’t live like this anymore—at least, not to this extent. I live as much of a minimal lifestyle as possible. Well, as minimal as one can live when they were born into American royalty.
I save most of my money. I invest it in small businesses and non-profits.
I try to practice what I preach as much as I can.
But when I come back to New York, I get swept back into the glamour of the Everett lifestyle.
My big brother, though, works his ass off.
He carries the weight of the oldest. The heir to everything, including the brunt of my father’s bullshit.
Our younger half-brother, Brooks, though…
He just reaps the benefits. He lives the exact life that the world thinks we all live—blowing money in a different country every week, surrounded by models and celebrities, wasting away in his warped sense of reality.
But he’s about to find out why Julian and I have such a complicated relationship with our father.
Julian rounds the corner, and when he sees me, I see instant relief wash over him.
His shoulders fall like he’s letting go of some weight, and we wrap each other in a hug.
He’s probably the person I trust the most in this world.
We have been through so much together. The death of our mother. The wrath of our father.
And now this. What’s coming now.
Everything has always been on his shoulders. I always feel a little bit better when he feels like he can lay some of it on me.
“Keat,” he says, clapping my back. “It’s really fucking good to see you.”
Around the corner comes in a short brunette, hair cut above her shoulders, wearing one of my brother’s sweatshirts. She smiles faintly as she makes her way to me, and I wrap her in a hug too.
“Hi, Keaton,” she says.
“Hey, Sawyer,” I say back. She’s been in my brother’s life for a few months now, and honestly, I really like what she’s done to him. I’ve never seen him have the zest he has, the desire to do more for himself and not be so concerned with living up to the expectations laid on him at birth.
“When does Brooks get in?” I ask as we make our way to Julian’s living room. Bless his soul, he has takeout from the Thai place waiting for me on the coffee table. He shrugs as he falls into the extra-large couch, Sawyer falling into place beside him.
“Who knows,” Julian says. “You know the only sense of urgency that boy has is when it comes to his social life.”
I shake my head as I unpack the food, pulling the top off one of the dishes and letting the aroma fill the room.
My mouth waters. We sit for a few hours, shooting the shit, talking about the projects I’ve been working on, talking to Sawyer about the West Coast, and listening to some of the improvements my brother has been making within Everett Enterprises.
He really is the best of us. At some point, Brooks texts to say that his jet just landed, and he needs to push till tomorrow.
Typical.
The end of the fucking world as we know it, but Brooksy needs a nap.
After another hour or so, I look up at Julian as Sawyer sleeps quietly in a ball under his arm.
“How bad is this, Julian?” I ask him. He takes a bite of his own food and then looks up at me.
“It’s not good, Keat. But if we can pull off what I want to pull off, I think we can save everything.” I nod. My big brother always has a plan. “You want to crash here tonight so you don’t have to schlep all the way downtown?”
I shake my head as I push to stand.
“Nah. I’m going to get one more night of sleep in ignorant bliss before the world explodes tomorrow.”
He smiles and nods.
“Good deal. Mac will get ya home. Be safe. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Night, J,” I say as Mac presses the elevator button for me.
We drive in silence as we head downtown, the city as loud and bright as ever. But as we go farther and farther down, I sit up.
“Mac, can we make a pitstop?”
Mac nods in the mirror.
“Of course,” he says, “you’re the boss.” I cringe. I hate that. I’m not anyone’s boss. I just have the right name. “Where to?”
I look out the window.
I know I shouldn’t.
I know it’s probably useless anyway.
There is no chance she could still be working there.
Right?
“I’ll probably be waiting tables here till I’m sixty. You know social workers don’t make
shit,” she had told me once.
I sigh and swipe a hand down my face.
“Punch in Kim’s Diner, please,” I tell him. He nods.
And in nine minutes, we’re there.
It sits on the corner of an intersection in Midtown, and like just about everywhere else in
New York, there is no convenient parking.
“I’m not supposed to let ya go without me, boss,” Mac says. I look at him through the rearview and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t call me that. And don’t worry. I’m the invisible Everett. I won’t be long.”
And before he can protest, I open the door and hop out. I open the door, the little bell
ringing, and look around. It’s past midnight, but there are still a few people eating.
And then I see her, pouring a cup of coffee for a man sitting at the counter.
Her dusty-pink diner shirt and matching apron look like the same one she wore fifteen years ago, and her long blonde locks are pulled back into a messy knot on the top of her head.
She smiles as she talks to him, making conversation as easily as ever.
She walks down the counter to another customer, clearing her plate and talking to her too.
And then her eyes lift to me, and I freeze.