Prologue

PROLOGUE

Riven

Six years earlier

The whole bed of the truck was moving along with Rex’s jittery leg. We’d driven up one of the old mountain service roads to hang out. We weren’t here long when he opened his first beer, then started sniffing shit up his nose. I couldn’t pretend I never did the same. Most of the time it was the two of us together getting drunk and high, but I just wasn’t right lately. Nothing held any joy for me. I was exhausted, though I didn’t know why. I was tired of this, of the life we led, but I wasn’t dumb enough to believe anything would ever change. That didn’t happen for people like Rex and me. We were losers, just like our dads, and in Rex’s case, his grandparents too.

Rex let out a loud burp, and I shook my head. “Fucking gross.”

He was my best friend, but lately, I’d been wondering why. That was another change in me I couldn’t explain. Rex was a dick, but then, I was too. I’d known him since I was a kid. He was the brother I’d never had, and his dad was there for me in ways my own never was.

No one messed with me because of the things Frank Hunt had taught me. He showed me how to fight and take care of myself. If I ever got in trouble, I knew I could go to him and he would do his best to get me out of it. Even though he had another son, Parrish, it was me and Rex he trusted, the two of us by his side. It wasn’t something I’d ever said to him, but I was glad for that not only for myself, but for Parrish too. For some reason, I didn’t like seeing him do the illegal shit we did.

“Stop being such a pussy.” Rex shoved me playfully.

I did my best to ignore him.

I was so tired of living in this shithole town where everyone I knew had been arrested or should be, including myself. I’d been dating the same girl off and on for years, a girl I couldn’t love because I didn’t know how to love anyone other than my grandma. Becca stayed with me because it wasn’t like she had any better options in Clayton. Who would she date? Rex? I was pretty sure he’d fucked her at least once behind my back, and yep, that was another thing on my do-not-care list.

“I’m bored,” Rex said. “Tomorrow we should try and pawn that shit Les and I stole.”

I nodded because whether I felt like it or not, I would go with him. Sometimes I wondered what Rex would say if he knew the shit that went on in my head. If he knew that the older we got, the harder it was for me to be around him, or that I was bi and sometimes I snuck off to go fuck men, or that I hated so much the shit we did, even if I was right there with him selling drugs or lifting cars.

The sound of his cell broke through the night, and all I could do was hope it was something for him to go do so I could make up an excuse and go home.

“It’s Dad.” He accepted the call. “What’s up?” Frank was saying something I couldn’t hear. Maybe he had a job for us. Rex and I had been working deals for him since we were fourteen years old—scams since before that. “No shit? I hate that motherfucker.”

Shit. That was all we needed tonight, for Rex to drag us into a fight with someone he thought did him dirty in one way or another.

“I’m with Riv. We’ll be right there.” He ended the call, grabbed his keys, and jumped down. “That piece of shit Jerry Wilson is at Uncle Bill’s bar. Dad said he’s drunk as hell and running his mouth again. I’m gonna beat that piece of shit’s ass.”

Jerry was a few years older than us, and we’d never gotten along with him. Rex was right. He was a piece of shit. He always had something to say and had tried to get us in trouble more than once. Still, I wasn’t feeling this plan to drive to the bar and kick the shit out of him.

“Fuck that. I have better things to do with my time than race down to deal with Jerry.”

“Like sitting in the back of my truck, nursing the same beer all night? Shut up and get into the truck, Riv.”

“Fuck you. I don’t answer to you.”

“Fine, then stay out here all night. You’ve been weird about shit lately. What’s your problem?”

I don’t know.But it was clear I had one. I should go make sure that someone like Jerry Wilson didn’t always have my name in his mouth. Jerry didn’t give a fuck about me…and Rex did. He might be an idiot, but he was my best friend. He always had my back. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t have his?

“You’re high and drunk. Let me drive.” I jumped down too just as Rex threw me his keys. I said a silent thank-you that I didn’t have to argue with him about getting behind the wheel. Sometimes I did. I might screw around with a lot of stuff, but driving drunk or high wasn’t one of them.

It took us about thirty minutes to get to Bill’s bar, the Homestead. A part of me was hoping Jerry was gone, while another didn’t want to miss him. There was an itch beneath my skin that I didn’t know how to soothe, that I never knew how to soothe, and sometimes fighting helped ease it for a little while—fighting or fucking or drugs.

It always came back, though.

“Holy shit! It’s like Christmas! Look!” Rex grabbed my arm as I pulled into a parking spot, and there was Jerry, alone, pissing beside his car. “Woohoo!” Rex beat his hands down on the dashboard, over and over, like it was a drum.

There was an electric current coming off him that didn’t feel healthy, didn’t feel good at all, this twinge in the air telling me I had to put a stop to this.

“Let’s get out of here,” I told him.

He whipped his head in my direction. “Why you bein’ such a bitch lately? You my boy or not?” I was, or at least I was supposed to be. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, why I was acting like this shit was a big deal, so when he said, “We’re doing this,” I got out of the truck with him. “Guess who, motherfucker!” Rex singsonged at the guy like he was in a princess movie or something.

Jerry turned around and stumbled. He was clearly drunk off his ass, and why the hell was Bill letting him leave like that, instead of making sure he wasn’t driving home?

“So I hear you have a big mouth,” Rex told him. “Saying shit that’s none of your business about me and mine.”

“Fuck you,” Jerry spit at him.

“No, fuck you,” I countered.

“Aw, if it isn’t Rex and Frank’s little errand boy. Don’t have a daddy of your own, so you pretend Frank Hunt gives a shit about you.”

Anger built inside me, a volcano seconds away from erupting. There was a voice inside my head telling me that what he said was partly true. I did do a lot of shit for Frank, but it was because I wasn’t as big of a loose cannon as Rex. I didn’t mess up the way he did, and I didn’t have the same big mouth. And he’d rather come to me instead of Parrish because for whatever reason, he trusted me more. Frank did give a shit about me.

“Kiss my ass, you piece of shit. I don’t give a fuck what you think.”

Rex started laughing, which distracted me for a moment, enough for Jerry to take a swing at me. His fist connected with my face, pain shooting through my right eye.

“Motherfucker!” pushed past my lips as I swung back, his lip splitting open, his blood on my knuckles. Jerry tried to charge me, but I dodged him. “Stop. You’re smashed. I don’t want to hurt you.” He tried to turn, stumbled, and made a second attempt to charge me but missed again. He was way too drunk for this, and someone was going to get hurt.

“Beat his ass, Riv. He’s a loser,” Rex goaded me on, still laughing.

“He doesn’t need me to do it. He’s gonna do it to himself. I’m not touching him again. Too easy. I’m not going after someone who can’t even stand on his feet.”

Rex rolled his eyes at me. “You’re such a pussy sometimes.” And then it was him going after Jerry, who was still focused on me.

It all happened so fast, I couldn’t get any words out—Rex colliding with Jerry, Jerry falling to the concrete, his head snapping backward and smacking against the curb.

Blood. So much fucking blood.

Convulsions.

“What the hell did you do?” I shouted at Rex, running over and collapsing to the concrete beside Jerry. “Call 911.”

“Fuck that shit. I’m getting the hell out of here. Let’s go, Riven.”

“We can’t just leave him!”

“You idiot! We need to get the hell out of here now!” And then he ran, leaving me there, with Jerry bleeding all over the ground.

I reached for my cell phone, but it wasn’t on me. I didn’t know where in the hell it was. My heart was a stampede of elephants in my chest. Bile climbed up my throat.

He was dying. Right there in front of me.

I ran for the back door, which was closest. It led to Bill’s office at the bar. There was a keypad on the back, my fingers frantically punching in the code.

Bill and Frank were in there together, a stack of money between them. “He’s dying! Rex knocked him down and his head smacked into the concrete! Call an ambulance!”

It was Frank who grabbed me and kept me from going outside. Frank who didn’t let Bill make a call…didn’t let me leave.

“Where’s Rex?” he asked.

“He fucking left. Help me!”

“Tell me what happened. Don’t leave anything out,” Frank insisted.

Why was he stalling? Jerry could die, and it would be our fault…my fault, for driving Rex here. For talking shit. For hitting Jerry. Christ, Rex hadn’t even hit him until the tackle.

Still, I spilled the story, heart in my throat the whole time.

“Son…listen to me, son. This is where you show us what you’re made of, how you pay our family back for all the things we’ve done for you. I’ve loved you like my own, raised you, and you stayed…Rex left. There’s no sense in both of you going down.”

“What?” I asked, body vibrating.

“You do this for us. You owe us. Bill and I saw it all go down.” I couldn’t keep up, couldn’t make sense of what was happening. They hadn’t seen a damn thing. “There are two ways this goes: either we saw it and it was self-defense—you won’t get much time for that—or we saw it and you killed that man in cold blood. Think about your grandma. You know what happens to narcs, Riven. You do this, and we take care of you and your family. You don’t want…” He shrugged. “Who knows what will happen.”

I didn’t need him to explain what he was saying, what he would do. This was my father figure—the man had told me I was like a son to him—and yet he wanted me to go to prison for something I didn’t do, and was threatening the only person I ever loved if I didn’t do it.