CHAPTER TWO
brYCE
I made it out. Barely. And yet, it feels like I’ve returned from a war I never stood a chance of winning.
I swing open the grand double doors of my residence.
My Italian leather shoes echo against the marble floor, announcing my arrival.
The foyer stretches out before me: pristine white walls, soaring ceilings, and modern art.
Each piece—a testament to wealth—provides the only color in this otherwise stark mausoleum posing as a home.
It’s a glass and steel palace, perched on the edge of the Hollywood Hills as if it owns the horizon.
The wall of windows offers an expansive view of Los Angeles: the glinting downtown skyline, the hazy coastline in the distance, and the sun setting in a blaze of orange and pink over the ocean.
It’s a city I once thought was mine for the taking.
“Amanda?” I call out, my voice swallowed by the vastness.
No answer. Not surprising.
I hadn’t planned to come back from New York today, but Mother insisted I attend tonight’s charity gala—something about yachts for youth or champagne for chickens or whatever cause is fashionable this quarter.
The Sterling name must be represented properly, of course.
Heaven forbid we miss a photo opportunity with our checkbooks.
My girlfriend is likely upstairs getting ready. I choose not to call out again, instead savoring the rare gift of silence before the next storm of social obligations.
I drop my briefcase by the circular monstrosity Amanda calls a couch—a ninety-thousand-dollar designer piece that looks stunning but feels like a concrete slab. The entire house is like this. Trophy furnishings selected for appearance rather than function.
Two people do not need nine bedrooms, fourteen bathrooms, and twenty thousand square feet. Unless, of course, those two people want to easily avoid each other. Guilty as charged.
The glass doors to the patio slide open with a whisper. I step into the night, warm air brushing against my skin, and lower myself into a teak lounge chair facing the infinity pool and twenty-five-person jacuzzi that I’ve used exactly twice in the past year.
I loosen my tie and breathe.
Just for a second.
Just long enough to pretend this is the life I chose. That I’m not some obedient legacy soldier.
“Better enjoy the view while I can.”
In one week, I’ll be calling New York home as the new CEO of Sterling Industries, my family’s empire.
Trading California sunshine for Manhattan streetlights.
Swapping a career I built for one I inherited when I drew my first breath.
Another Sterling man taking his predestined place in the corner office with his name already on the door.
The Sterling name is synonymous with wealth. Every major city in the world has at least one building with our name emblazoned across it in gleaming letters. Over a billion people carry Sterling Bank cards in their wallets. And not one of them could tell you who I am.
I learned early that wealth isn’t freedom.
Not when it owns you.
Not when it turns your choices into obligations and your name into a leash.
I pull out my phone and scroll through an avalanche of emails that accrued during my week in the Big Apple. Subject lines scream for attention: quarterly projections, board meeting minutes, and Heartvest’s looming IPO.
This past week was an exercise in futility. I’d gone to Manhattan with one mission: convince my father to give me more time at Heartvest, the company I built with my best friend Gavin from the ground up. Instead, I got a masterclass in Reginald Sterling’s particular brand of negotiation.
“The agreement was thirty, Bryce. You turn thirty next month.” His voice was steady, emotionless, as he swirled eighteen-year-old scotch in a crystal tumbler. “A Sterling man honors his commitments.”
As if I needed the reminder.
This is the deal I made after Princeton. Five years to stretch my legs. Get my hands dirty in something “real” before being dragged back into the family dynasty. Five years to pretend I had a say in the matter.
I spot an email from Gavin: Board impressed with projections. IPO on track. See you at the gala.
Gavin Brinkman. My chosen brother.
The guy who worked three jobs so his mom could keep their two-bedroom rental in Beverly Hills. The guy who tutored rich kids to cover tuition. The guy who looked at me—a symbol of privilege and legacy and everything he didn’t have—and chose friendship over resentment.
The guy I’m going to abandon.
Heat floods my chest, a mixture of shame and regret bubbling up like acid. How the hell am I supposed to tell him? Over canapés at Mother’s charity soirée? “Splendid affair, old friend. Oh, by the way, I’m cutting ties on the eve of our company going public. More champagne, perhaps?”
My throat tightens. After high school together, getting him into Princeton with me was the least I could do.
My father called it “misplaced charity.” The truth was far more selfish: I couldn’t imagine navigating those ivy-covered walls without the one person who made me feel I was more than just another Sterling.
Heartvest was Gavin’s vision from the start. We were in our senior year, drunk on mid-tier Merlot, when he pitched it—his eyes alive with an excitement I had never felt, his hands gesturing wildly as he laid it all out.
“Wealth management for the working class,” he’d declared. “Your family’s bank requires what, a million minimum, to get a meeting? My mom worked her fingers raw cleaning toilets for twenty years and still doesn’t understand how to save for retirement. That’s fucked up. We’re going to fix it.”
I’d nodded along, mentally allocating the seed funding he’d need. But it was more than money—for the first time, I saw a path that wasn’t preordained by my last name. Something that mattered beyond quarterly returns and shareholder value.
Five years later, Heartvest has sixty million users: everyday people investing spare change, learning financial literacy, building nest eggs.
We’re two weeks away from a public offering that analysts are calling “the democratization of wealth building.” Our users have collectively saved over half a billion dollars.
And I’m walking away.
My phone vibrates—my mother’s aggressive text glows accusingly on the screen.
Mother: Car arriving in 40 minutes. Wear Armani, not Brioni. Giorgio Armani’s niece Roberta will be attending tonight.
I drop my head into my hands, palms pressed to my eyes, until I see stars. Tonight. I have to tell Gavin tonight.
I drag myself toward the master bedroom, each step heavier than the last. I press on the large bedroom door. The room yawns open, revealing a space that could comfortably house a family of four. The bed alone is obscene.
It’s not a king-size bed. It’s a king plus a side of king.
I glance at my reflection in the expansive mirror and groan. “Christ, you’re already falling apart—and it’s only been one week working alongside him.”
My blue eyes are haunted, my usually neat blond hair flops over my forehead, and the five o’clock shadow darkening my jaw would have my mother tsking . I can already hear her clipped tone: “Appearance is currency in our world, and you look positively bankrupt.”
Still no sign of Amanda. Strange.
Collapsing backward onto the bed, I pull up my favorite playlist—classic rock ballads. Songs that are supposed to be ironic but somehow end up punching me in the damn feelings.
Steven Tyler wails through the speakers. “Dream On.”
How fitting .
I close my eyes and let the music drown out the world. Let it press back the expectation. The deadlines. The inevitability.
My mind drifts to the boardroom disaster from earlier today.
To Petra Brinkman—Gavin’s fiery little sister, whom I nicknamed Pip. It’s been two years since I last laid eyes on her. Her jet-black hair, pale skin, and full red lips were unmistakably the same, but still… She seemed different.
A snort of laughter escapes as I recall her horrified expression at today’s meeting. The sight of her unleashing a tsunami of water, taking out the entire Zoom session.
Poor Gavin. He’s got his hands full trying to harness that tornado.
He loves his sister fiercely, always has, but Pip has never been one to color inside the lines.
The idea of her conforming to corporate culture is about as plausible as my father showing genuine emotion.
Oil and water. Fire and ice. Petra and rules.
Teenage Petra was all attitude and eyeliner. Her smart mouth was always loaded and ready to fire, especially in my direction. “Hey, Moneybags,” she’d say. “Decide which country you’re buying today?”
The music shifts, one ballad fading into another. The first, yearning notes of Heart’s “Alone” fill the room, and every muscle in my body goes rigid.
Dammit.
Not this song.
Not this memory.
But it’s too late.
I see it like it’s happening again.
The moment I’ve locked away breaks free, playing as vividly as if it happened yesterday, not seven years ago .
Petra’s high school graduation party. The one no one came to.
I remember standing in her bedroom doorframe. A vintage record player sat atop a milk crate playing this song. Rock band posters were plastered over her walls. Her desk was cluttered with sketchbooks and colored pencils.
“Pip? Just wanted to say goodbye.”
She looked up at me from where she sat on the bed.
Crying.
Knees pulled to her chest.
Graduation gown crumpled on the ground.
Mascara smudged under wet, furious eyes.
She swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Guess you jet-setted over here for nothing, Moneybags,” she snarked. “Well, at least you got your daily dose of watching the peasants fail.”
I’d never seen Petra vulnerable.
Angry? Constantly.
Sarcastic? Her native language.
But sad? Actually wounded? This was uncharted territory, and it made my chest hurt in ways I didn’t have words for.
“You deserve better than this,” I said simply.