Prologue
Ten years ago
The needle of the tattoo machine bites into the skin of my brother’s chest. I can hear its pulsing hum above the music echoing off the brightly painted walls of the shop. It’s some kind of pop-metal that was popular a couple years ago and has since fallen off the mainstream radar. My brother grins up at me from where he’s lying back in the chair, completely relaxed even though the entire process appears painful. “It’s not that bad.”
I roll my eyes. “It looks damn delightful.”
The tattoo artist, a young man with a serious expression, skin covered in tattoos, pauses to wipe some blood from his skin.
“You good?” he asks my brother.
“Yeah. Keep going.”
“Dad’s going to be pissed,” I say lamely. It’s the same argument I’ve been making since this morning, when my twin brother started pestering me about the tattoos—again—as we drove together in the Town Car on the way to our hometown of Dalton. It’s our eighteenth birthday.
“He won’t, and you know it,” my brother laughs.
He’s right in one sense. Dad won’t be upset with Chris, but he’ll find a way to make me feel like a goddamned idiot, one way or another. It’ll either be that I shouldn’t have gotten such a dumbass tattoo, or that I should have gone along with my brother’s idea. I can never tell with our dad. We just don’t get each other.
Stepping closer to the chair, I look at the way the design is coming together on his skin. As far as tattoos go, it’s pretty awesome—it’s a reproduction of the Pierce family crest, but with one small alteration. Instead of the falcon that appears in one tiny portion of the crest, there’s a C. You’d never notice it unless you knew it was there.
The benefit to having an identical twin is that if he’s the reckless one, you can stand back to see how things turn out before you jump in feet first.
And in my case, my brother is the reckless one.
I don’t fucking get it why everyone worships my brother, but that’s also probably why he’s our dad’s favorite. My dad was the king of his frat in college. He still loves to party, but now that he’s one of the richest men in New York, he doesn’t take it quite as far as he used to. Everyone loves him because he’s so much fun. It’s the same thing with Chris.
For such a “fun guy,” Dad can really be an asshole. As far as I know, not being the life of the party isn’t a crime.
I shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans. Not being at the top of my dad’s popularity list probably has to do with Mom. I’m too much like her.
But I’m not the one who divorced him.
“Come on, Eli. It’s going to be fucking awesome. Everyone’s going to love it.”
I smile in spite of myself. “If I wait, we can test it out.”
“Testing things out” is something you only get to do if you’re exact replicas of one another, which is exactly the case with my brother and me. The differences between us—at least physically—are so subtle, so tiny, that we’ve successfully tricked our parents on more than one occasion. Not many people are going to be looking for the pinprick of a mole that Chris has on his left ankle. We’re talking that miniscule level of shit. In every other way, looking at him is like me looking into a mirror.
As identical as we are physically, however, our personalities are the opposite–we’re as different as night and day.
I’ve always been hesitant; he’s always been the go-getter. It’s not that I don’t or won’t go after the things I want, but in general, I’ll think it over for a while whereas Chris never does.
“What would we need to test it on?” he says, arching an eyebrow.
“Girls.”
Chris scoffs. “You think girls aren’t going to like a tattoo? You’re crazy, man.” The tattoo artist cracks a smile, but he doesn’t look up from his work.
“Well, certain girls.”
That’s another difference between Chris and me. His attention tends to….wander. Chris dates a new girl every week, and they’re typically the kind who like to get right down to screwing in the backseat of someone’s car or their parents’ spare room.
I’ve dated a few girls, and it’s always been a long-term kind of thing. At least, as long-term as it gets during high school. Date someone a year and you’re practically married.
Which, it turns out, is too boring for some people—namely, my last girlfriend, Sarah. She liked that I could afford to take her on all the fancy dates she wanted. What she didn’t like was that I wouldn’t sneak out with her as often as she wanted.
Not that my Dad would know, or care.
Unless it’s on a day when he decides that he does, and then there’s hell to pay.
Whatever. I’d rather not go through the hassle of buying my way out of some underage drinking charge.
Or worse.
Christian has been going to parties most every weekend, and I know he’s doing more than drinking at those things. I can see it by the hazy glaze in his eyes some mornings, even if he won’t admit it to me.
Even my fun-loving father doesn’t get behind drugs.
This weekend, Chris is throwing a party at one of my father’s rentals in the city. It’s a massive penthouse that’s currently between renters. What’s convenient is that Dad leaves tomorrow for a five-day business trip to survey some of Pierce Industries’ factories in China, so there’ll be plenty of time to have the place cleaned after the party.
It’s not the state of the penthouse carpet that has me worried. When I asked Chris earlier this week what type of party he was planning to have, he looked away before he answered.
“Just drinks,” he lied.
It won’t be just drinks.
“What are you going to do, Eli? Are you too much of a delicate flower to go through with this?”
“No,” I say, shooting him one of my “I can be as cool as you” looks. The tattoo artist makes a few more strokes on the design, and then it’s finished.
Chris is right. It looks cool as hell.
And maybe it’s lame, but I want to impress him.
“I’m doing it,” I say confidently.
Chris reaches out with his free arm and gives me a fist bump. “I knew you would.”
“It looks sick,” I say, as the tattoo artist wipes down Chris’s arm with rubbing alcohol and begins applying Vaseline to keep the new piece de resistance moist.
“You’re damn right it does,” Chris says, bending his neck down to get his first real look at it. “Just think, Eli. You’ll finally be edgy. How will the ladies resist?”
Chapter 1
Quinn
I’ve been in New York City for five minutes, and it’s already spitting on me.
Literally.
The moment I step out from the terminal into the taxi line, the heavy gray clouds that have been hanging ominously low over the city open up. The roof over the taxi stand isn’t worth a damn against the rain, which is being driven by a squally summer wind, and of course I’m not wearing a raincoat and I don’t have an umbrella.
The last thing I’m going to do is drag my oversized suitcase, stuffed with the clothes and books I couldn’t bear to leave behind in Colorado, onto a city bus.