Kingmakers, Year One

Miles

MILES

F or Iggy’s album drop, I throw the biggest party of the summer at an old charcoal factory in Bucktown.

I’ve thrown some ragers, but this one tops them all.

I call in every favor I’ve got to get The Shakers to do the opening set. That’s crucial to bring in top-tier guests and to give the impression that Iggy is even more famous than the most popular band in Chicago.

I set up the stage and sound system on the roof, preemptively bribing the on-call cops to ignore any noise complaints.

Then I pack the guest list with models, influencers, musicians, and photographers, plus all the sexy young socialites from my parents’ circle, warning them not to tell anybody about the private event so I can be sure they’ll message every last motherfucker they know.

I get the swag bags on the cheap, bartering with friends who want to put their luxury goods in the hands of the Chicago elite.

And finally I liberate a freight car of Bollinger from the rail yard, because I want fountains of champagne, and there’s no way to get the top-shelf stuff for a reasonable price.

There’s no better place for a party than an old factory. The vast open spaces, the hulking furnaces in the corners, the raw concrete walls and the bare beams overhead . . . it gives that sense of gritty authenticity you could never find in an event center. The glitterati want to feel like they’re slumming it, and the actual artists need to feel at home.

I’ve got four of my boys running security.

Much as I want the appearance of an out-of-control bacchanalia, everything needs to run smooth tonight. Iggy is about to sign a seven-figure deal with a record label in L.A. They want music from the streets, but no actual criminal charges attached to their newest star.

I’ve known Iggy since we were kids. His dad used to chauffeur my father around when he was mayor of the city. Iggy and I would crowd into the glassed-off front seat, playing music and fucking with the lights, while my parents rode in the back, strategizing for the night ahead.

Iggy is wildly talented. His hooks are catchy, and his rhyme schemes so dense and interconnected that I feel like I have to listen to his songs five times over before I can truly appreciate them.

Iggy’s a sweetheart, more poet than gangster. His only personality flaw is his willingness to trust the wrong people.

Which leads us to the biggest tripwire of the night—Iggy’s piece-of-shit uncle.

“Declan Poe doesn’t get through this door,” I say to my boy Anders, nodding my head toward the double steel doors at the entrance. “If you see him, you call me. Don’t wait for him to cause trouble.”

Anders nods. Beckett and Anders are built like twin refrigerators. They could handle a small army on their own.

I run the party like a maestro in front of an orchestra. I deploy the drinks, the food, the music, the lighting, and the flow of guests with obsessive precision, while creating the illusion of free movement and free choice.

I glide through the crowd, introducing fame-hungry models to sleazy producers, brilliant videographers to marketing reps. Every connection is a new favor in my pocket as I hook people up with exactly what they need.

I hype Iggy up, too. He hates performing, gets nervous every time.

“It’s not even a concert,” I tell him. “People are just here to hang out. There’s no pressure.”

There’s a metric fuck-ton of pressure. More pressure than the San Andreas fault. But it won’t do Iggy any good to hear that.

Everything is flawless. Till I spot another uninvited guest.

She’s standing over by the bar, sipping a glass of my extremely expensive stolen champagne, wearing a minidress that uses less fabric than an oversized handkerchief. I can see at least six different men hovering around her, waiting for their chance to swoop in, while she chats up the Cubs’ newest pitcher.

The pitcher looks like he took a pop fly to the head. He’s staring into Sabrina’s eyes with a dazed expression, failing to bring his straw to his lips as he tries to take a sip of his cocktail and pokes himself in the nose instead. Sabrina stifles a giggle, biting the corner of her lip.

I shove my way through the crowd and grab her by the arm.

“Excuse me,” I say to the pitcher.

He shakes his head, coming out of his trance. “Hey! We were talking!”

“She’s gonna talk you right into Cook County jail,” I inform him. “She’s sixteen years old.”

The pitcher’s jaw drops.

Sabrina scowls at me, an expression that only manages to make her look more beautiful. My cousin is fucking dangerous.

“Let go of me,” she says coolly.

“Not a fuckin’ chance. You’re gatecrashing.”

“Oh, please.” She tosses her long, dark hair back over her shoulder. “You’re letting anybody in here. That dude gave up three home runs to the Sox on Thursday.”

I keep dragging her toward the exit. “Yup. Everybody’s welcome except you.”

“Why not?”

“ ‘Cause I don’t want Uncle Nero to cut my fucking head off.”

Now Sabrina’s really pissed.

“Are you serious?”

“As serious as antibiotic resistance.”

“!”

“Sabrina!” I’ve taken her all the way outside to the ivy-choked alleyway next to the factory. “Look, I get it. You hate being treated like a kid, and you just want to dance and have a couple drinks and make those dudes embarrass themselves for your amusement. On a normal night, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. But I’ve got a lot riding on this and I can’t keep an eye on you at the same time.”

“I don’t need you to babysit me!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know—you can take care of yourself. Go do it at some other party, ‘cause your dad’s already pissed at me.”

I whistle to catch the attention of a cab dropping off another load of partygoers.

Sabrina cocks an eyebrow at me. “You did steal his car.”

“I borrowed it for a photoshoot. And I brought it right back again.”

“With sand in the engine.”

I shove her in the backseat of the cab.

“Goodnight!” I slam the door in her face.

Whatever Sabrina shouts back at me is lost in the pounding bass emanating from the charcoal factory.

With a sigh of relief, I turn back to the party.

I love my cousin, but her dad is a barely-civilized psychopath and my night doesn’t need any more complications.

Besides, I’ve got to focus on Iggy. I can hear The Shakers winding down, which means he’s up in just a couple of minutes.

I head back up to the roof, backstage to the little dressing room I set up for him. Iggy’s pouring over his lyrics sheet, which looks like the journal of a madman, full of inky scribbles, crossed-out lines, and tiny arrows pointing to revisions.

He looks up when I enter, pushing his shaggy hair back out of his eyes and giving me his slow, sleepy grin.

“The band sounds great!”

“You’re gonna sound better.”

“Not too many people out there?”

“Nah,” I lie. “Barely any.”

In the bright stage lights, Iggy won’t see any different till he’s already done.

“That’s good,” he sighs.

Iggy’s normal speaking voice is so soft and slow that the transformation to his rapid-fire rapping jars me every time.

I tell him, “If your album charts the way I think it’s gonna, the contract with Virgin is a sure thing.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Iggy says.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, seeing a message from Anders:

Poe rolled up with three dudes, but I told him to fuck off. Think he left.

Good. I knew he couldn’t resist showing his ugly mug, but I’m glad Beckett and Anders were intimidating enough to dissuade him. If he comes back, we’re gonna have a much less-friendly conversation.

“Problem?” Iggy asks.

“Nope.” I tuck my phone back in my pocket. “You ready?”

Iggy folds up his lyrics sheet and stuffs it in his pocket. I know he’s already got it all locked up in that insane brain of his—he just likes to look it over to reassure himself.

The crowd whoops and cheers as The Shakers take their bow.

“Sounds like a lot of people,” Iggy says mildly.

“You got this.”

I walk him to the stairs leading up the backside of the stage. The sound engineer clips on Iggy’s mic and gives him the hand-held as well. The opening bars of “Deathless Life” begin to play. Iggy squares his shoulders and I see the transformation wash over him—his eyes narrowing, his lips tightening, his fingers gripping the mic.

Then he bounds up the stairs and starts shouting with the speed of an auctioneer:

They said I was buried

Desiccated and dead

I’ll climb up out the grave

Break the stone on ya head

I’m breathless and reckless

Continually climb

Drink the glass to the bottom

And eat up the lime . . .

By the time he reaches the chorus, the whole rooftop is shouting the lyrics along with him. Iggy will know that the factory is packed, a mass of people breaking every possible fire code, but it won’t matter by now, he’s in the swing of it.

I told my boy Kelly to video the whole thing. I’ll send that to Victor Kane tonight, and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t sign the contract on the spot. Iggy’s going to L.A., where he’ll be free from his bloodsucking relatives.

Right as I’m reveling in triumph, my phone buzzes again.

I pull it out, seeing Sabrina’s number.

My cousin wouldn’t call just to beg to be let back into the party.

I lift the phone to my ear, already sensing what I’m about to hear.

“Your bouncer needs a lesson in manners,” Poe says, in his three-packs-a-day rasp.

“He never passed the etiquette test in the employee training manual.”

“Not you though, huh?” Poe sneers. “You’re all jokes.”

“I’d call that a quip at best.”

“Let’s see how funny it is when I strangle your cousin and dump her body in the alley.”

I let out a slow breath of air. “Not a good idea. You know who her father is?”

“I don’t give a fuck who you little shits are related to,” Poe hisses. “Get down here and leave your fuckin’ bouncers in the warehouse.”

“It’s a factory,” I correct him. “But alright. I’m coming.”

I’m annoyed that I have to leave in the middle of Iggy’s performance. Even more annoyed that they dragged Sabrina into this. She probably hopped out of that cab the second it went round the corner. She’s always been a magnet for trouble.

As I pass Beckett and Anders guarding the door, Anders says, “Something wrong, boss?”

“A small inconvenience.”

I could give Anders shit for not calling me when Poe showed up like I told him to do, but this was coming one way or another.

“Wait twelve minutes,” I tell Anders. “Then come out to the alley.”

He nods slowly, his eyes fixed on mine. I can tell he’d rather follow me right now, but he’ll do what I ask.

“Alright, boss.”

“Twelve minutes.” I tap the Breitling on my wrist. “Use the side door.”

Anders takes a quick look at his own watch to confirm the time and jerks his head in the affirmative.

I pass the long line of people still waiting to come inside, all gazing enviously up toward the roof where Iggy’s ass-kicking performance is in full swing.

Then I turn the corner to the narrow alleyway where Poe waits with his three goons.

The alley is actually quite pretty, the factory wall carpeted with a thick mat of hanging ivy and the opposite side bordered by an ornate wrought-iron fence. The narrow space funnels the sound so that Iggy’s concert sounds much further away than it actually is, and I can hear my footsteps echoing on the concrete.

Poe has one of his idiot friends stationed at the opening of the alley, a rat-faced motherfucker in an oversized leather jacket. He smirks at me as I pass. Poe and his other two goons are holding Sabrina down at the end of the alley in front of a padlocked gate.

The biggest guy has Sabrina’s arms pinned behind her back, a position that pulls her tiny dress up even further. His friend—a stocky dude with teardrops tattooed on both cheeks—is standing slightly behind her so he can enjoy the view. If he wasn’t so busy staring at her ass, he might notice the glint of metal on her upper thigh.

Sabrina locks eyes with me. There’s no hint of fear or remorse in her face. Just pure, burning fury.

It doesn’t appear that they roughed her up, so maybe Poe isn’t as stupid as he looks.

He does look plenty stupid. He’s a walking cartoon character—his blocky, rectangular head sitting on a neck of exactly the same thickness, so it forms one long pillar from skull to shoulders. His face is shaved so high that his pouf of gingery hair perches on top of his head like a toupee. Add to that a drooping mustache and Bugs Bunny teeth.

Still, it would be a mistake to find him comical. Poe is no stranger to violence. The most dangerous man is one who has nothing to lose.

Poe is a six-time convict, petty drug dealer, and fentanyl addict who’s about to lose his last meal ticket. He’s going to cling to Iggy until his fingernails tear off. Unless I put a stop to this once and for all.

“You’re fuckin’ disrespectful, boy,” Poe hisses. “You throw a party for Iggy’s album, and you don’t even invite his manager?”

“You’re not his manager,” I reply. “And you’re right, I don’t respect you. You’re a leech. You’ve been bleeding Iggy dry since he posted his first song. You don’t do fuck-all for him.”

“I do everything for him!” Poe rasps, outraged. “Who helped pay his mum’s rent after his dad died? Who bought his Christmas presents?”

“You threw them fifty bucks here and there so you could use their house to stash your drugs. And the only Christmas I remember seeing you is the one where you had an ankle monitor and you needed a permanent address for your parole officer.”

If anybody paid Iggy’s rent it was my dad, who helped Iggy’s mom land a job as a PA at City Hall after his father dropped dead from a stroke at only forty-eight years old.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you!” Poe howls, his face turning the color of a turnip. “You think you can take my nephew away? Well I got yer fuckin’ cousin. So you can tear up that bullshit contract with Virgin-fuckin-whoever-the-fuck, or I’ll tear her pretty little face off instead!”

I give him a second to recover his breath. Then I reply, calmly, “That’s not happening. Iggy’s leaving. You’re staying here. It’s already decided. But I’m willing to discuss terms—we can all walk away happy tonight.”

“Fuck yer fuckin’ terms!” Poe laughs in my face. “Look around you! There’s four of us and one of you.”

I pretend to look at his three goons with something approaching respect. Really, I’m just confirming their exact positions. And Poe’s, too.

I give him one last warning. “No need for this to get ugly.”

“Oh, we’re way past ugly,” Poe sneers. “You think you’re making a deal here? I’ll shoot this bitch in the face just to set the table!”

He yanks a battered .45 out of the waistband of his filthy jeans and points it at Sabrina, cocking the trigger. Sabrina’s nostrils flare. I figure I have about two more minutes before she does something crazy. Which aligns nicely with my own timeline.

Poe doesn’t want the carrot—it’s time to bring out the stick.

“I’m glad you brought up firearms, Poe,” I say.

I’m slowly walking forward so that I can position myself between Poe and Sabrina. Poe doesn’t care—he’s fine with pointing his gun in my face instead. He turns his body, arm outstretched, so that his back is to the ivy-covered wall and Poe’s two goons are behind me.

“It’s hard to get rid of a gun…I mean, really get rid of it. You can file the serial numbers off, chuck it in a river. But it’s still there, just waiting to be found. And sometimes you don’t want to throw it in the river. The damn things are expensive. Sometimes the temptation to keep it is just too strong . . .”

“What the fuck are you blabbering about?” Poe’s mustache twitches.

“Iggy and I have been friends a long time,” I say. “Like that Christmas we were just talking about. I spent half the holiday at his house. You probably remember . . .”

Poe narrows his eyes at me, finger curled around the trigger of his gun. I don’t love that he’s holding it that way. He’s jittery enough to shoot me by accident.

“Iggy and me had just started smoking weed. I think we were fourteen, fifteen maybe. We had to find somewhere to hide his stash so his mom didn’t give us shit. We ended up taking down the air vent and putting our baggy in the ducts. Funny, though . . . we weren’t the first people to hide something in there . . .”

Poe has a sense of where I’m going, but he doesn’t quite believe it.

“You had just gotten out of jail after knocking over the 7-11 on Kedzie with a couple of your buddies. Somebody shot the cashier . . . oops. He died two days later. Cops thought it was you, but they couldn’t prove it from the security tape, and they didn’t have the murder weapon. You hid the gun. But you didn’t hide it very well. Uncles and nephews think alike I guess, ‘cause Iggy pulled it out of the wall.”

“Bullshit,” Poe hisses. Though he’s shaking his head, he takes a step back so he’s almost pressed up against the ivy.

“I’m afraid not,” I say quietly, “ ‘Course I didn’t know what that gun was at the time, or where it came from. But when you started demanding that Iggy pay you a forty percent commission . . . I dug up your old case file. I checked what caliber bullet they pulled out of that cashier’s neck. And I remembered what we found that Christmas. Only took me an hour to visit Iggy’s house and check the vent again.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Poe’s jaw is stubbornly set and he’s sweating.

“It was still there. A .357 Magnum revolver with a scratch across the grip. From how dirty it was . . . I kinda think you didn’t even wipe your prints off.”

“So the fuck what!” Poe shouts defiantly. “Doesn’t mean nothin’.”

“It means a lot,” I say. “Looks to me like the only evidence the cops need is that gun. They know you were at the gas station that night. They just couldn’t prove who pulled the trigger. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, unfortunately . . .”

Poe’s grip on his gun is none too steady. He’s looking back and forth between me and the gangly asshole who’s holding onto Sabrina. I’m hoping my leverage is enough that we can end this thing peacefully. But I’m also keeping Poe’s goons in my peripheral, counting down the seconds left on that twelve minutes . . .

“You’re a fuckin’ liar!” Poe shrieks. “You ain’t got any?—”

He’s cut off mid-accusation by the heavy metal door that hits him square in the back. He didn’t see it right behind him, covered over by the ivy. Anders comes barreling through the side door at top speed, hitting Poe so hard that he goes flying forward spread-eagle on the pavement, taking several layers of skin off his face.

Since I was waiting for exactly that moment, I have the advantage over the other two idiots. I charge the one with the tattooed face, trusting Sabrina to handle the other guy for just a second.

My dad always told me to attack smart, not hard. When your adrenaline is up, the natural inclination is to come in swinging. You gotta tamp that down if you want to be strategic.

Fists are overrated—too easy to break your hand first punch. Better to use the knees and elbows.

I come at Teardrops with a long knee, using the full momentum of my rush to drive my kneecap directly into his gut. Then, when he doubles over, I bring my elbow down hard on the back of his neck.

Right beside me, Tall n’ Ugly has made the mistake of letting go of Sabrina’s arms. Maybe he thought she’d stand there helpless while he jumped into the fight. He thought wrong.

In one swift movement, Sabrina unsheathes the little silver knife strapped to her thigh and slashes him across the face, opening his cheek from ear to jaw. He claps his hand to his face, blood pouring through his fingers, and Sabrina uses that opening to stab him under the ribs. He drops like a stone, her knife still buried in his side.

Rat-Face has realized that his guarding of the alley was both unsuccessful and no longer required, so he comes charging at me, trying to pull his gun out of his flapping leather jacket. I throw my cellphone hard at his face, hitting him on the bridge of the nose with a satisfying crunch. I follow that up with a right-cross that takes the rest of the starch out of him.

Meanwhile, Anders is grappling with Poe, who managed to keep hold of his gun despite his brief departure with gravity and the road rash down his cheek. Poe squeezes the trigger wildly, firing two shots up in the air, and a third that narrowly misses my ear.

“Watch it!” I shout.

“Sorry,” Anders grunts. He wrenches the gun out of Poe’s hand and uses it to crack him across the jaw. A tooth flies out of Poe’s mouth, landing next to Sabrina’s shoe.

“Ew,” she says.

I rip the gun out of Rat-Face’s jacket, giving him another kick in the gut to remind him to stay down. Then I examine Tall n’ Ugly.

“Sabrina,” I say, with an irritated sigh. “Did you have to go for the liver? I wasn’t planning on burying a body tonight.”

Tall n’ Ugly looks up at me, grimacing in pain.

“I’m not dead,” he pleads.

“You will be if I pull that knife out of you.”

It’s buried hilt-deep in his side, and it has Sabrina’s prints on it.

Sabrina looks down on him contemptuously.

“You could take him to one of the safe houses,” she says. “Or just pull it out and drop him on the side of the highway.”

“ I’m not doing anything,” I tell her. “I’ve gotta wrap this party up. You and Anders take him. Go out that way,” I say to Anders, nodding my head toward the padlocked gate. “I don’t want any guests seeing him.”

“What about the other three?” Anders says, looking down at the semi-conscious groaning assholes.

“They can walk home or pay for their own damn cab.”

Tomorrow I’ll mail the Magnum to my favorite dirty cop at the Chicago PD. Not because I like snitching—I don’t. It’s the principle of the thing.

I was willing to give Poe one last payday as long as he left Iggy alone after that. I’d always choose to make an ally over an enemy.

But Poe refused to make a deal. So he’s gotta pay the consequences.

Giving Sabrina one last glance to make sure she’s okay, I head back inside the factory. I send Beckett out to help Anders with clean up, and then I make it back up to the rooftop just in time to watch Iggy take his bow. As far as I can tell, the music was loud enough to drown out the gunfire. Or else people thought it was part of the backing track—it’s all the rage to use “found sounds” these days.

The rest of the night passes in blissful peace. Clips of Iggy’s performance go viral on every possible platform. When his album drops at midnight, “Deathless Life” gets a hundred thousand downloads in the first hour.

Victor Kane texts me a photo of Iggy’s contract with his signature scrawled in ink across the bottom.

Iggy and I celebrate by taking a bath in the champagne fountain.

“Thank you, man,” Iggy says, toasting me with a glass he’s too drunk to notice is already empty.

“You’re the talent,” I tell him. “I just had to shine a spotlight on you.”

Iggy sets his glass down, trying to focus his bleary stare on me.

“Why don’t you come with me, man? Come to L.A.?”

“I will,” I say. “But not yet. I’ve got two more years of school.”

“What do you need a degree for?” Iggy says. “You’re already a fuckin’ genius.”

“It’s not the degree, it’s the connections.”

As close as Iggy and I have always been, I haven’t told him what Kingmakers is really like. I can’t tell anyone who isn’t a mafioso themselves.

The island is isolated and restrictive. Each student can only bring in a single suitcase. The list of forbidden items includes alcohol, drugs, and most electronics.

At Kingmakers I do exactly what I did in high school, but on a much grander scale: I’m a broker. I provide contraband, smuggled onto the island via a network of fishermen and locals.

I’ve been hustling since I was twelve years old, saving up every penny in pursuit of my ultimate goal.

I want to be an actual Kingmaker. The appointer of stars. Creator of music, fashion, and cinema.

I don’t want to be Justin Bieber—I want to be Scooter Braun.

I have no desire for celebrity. The real power is the man behind the curtain. The producer at the epicenter of global culture.

I want to find a hundred Iggys, and I want to drop a thousand albums. I want to produce the next Avengers franchise. And I want to control the billions of dollars of endorsements and ads attached to all of it.

There’s one crucial factor of this dream: I have to do it on my own.

I’m building my empire without a penny of my parents’ money.

I want to stand on top of the mountain without a single asterisk next to my name.

The American Dream is to be a self-made man.

And that’s why I started my bank account at zero, no trust fund, no cheats. Every dollar I earn goes into that account—every hustle, every deal. I’m at $9.8 million now, money earned by my own meticulous, ingenious, and even reckless labor.

The commission I earned off Iggy’s Virgin contract will put me almost at $10 million.

I think $12 million is the number I need to launch my empire in Los Angeles. I have it all planned out—the Malibu mansion I’ll rent, the office space I’ll lease on Wilshire Boulevard. The parties I’ll throw and the fish I’ll reel in one by one.

I can see it all perfectly in my mind.

Two more years at Kingmakers, and then I’ll join Iggy in La La Land.

The Uber drops me off at my parents’ house at 5:20 in the morning.

It looks more like an Apple store than a house—a transparent prism of glass propped up on stilts, so that half the floor overhangs the lake. Privacy be damned, no curtains or blinds block any of the windows. You can see right inside the rooms to my father’s sleek, modern furniture and my mother’s bold paint-spattered art on the walls.

I can see my mom sitting at the kitchen table drinking her morning coffee, wearing her favorite ratty old Cubs T, her hair twisted up in a bun with a pen stuck through to hold it in place.

She glances up as soon as I come in the house, her brilliant smile breaking over her face like she’s been awake for hours, and not twenty minutes at most.

“There’s fresh coffee in the pot,” she says. “Unless you’re planning to go to sleep in a minute.”

She’s poring over a bunch of documents that look like real estate transactions. Probably some new development with Uncle Nero. As soon as one’s finished, he’s onto the next.

“I’ll just have one of those.” I snitch an apple slice off her plate.

“Congratulations,” she says to me.

“For what?”

“Iggy’s song. I checked the charts as soon as I woke up.”

I can’t help smiling. I never told my mom anything about the drop party or the single coming out. She’s a sneaky fucker, just like me. Always gathering information.

“He’s going to L.A.,” I say.

“That’s great,” my mom replies, with real pleasure. “He’s a good kid, he deserves it. You should be proud of yourself, .”

Satisfaction is the enemy of success. I’ll be proud of myself when I’ve got the whole damn world at my feet.

“You’re a good friend,” my mom says.

“I took a nice commission out of the deal,” I tell her, grabbing another apple slice.

“I know why you did it.” She’s looking at me in the way she always does, like I’m the best person in the world. Like she can’t help grinning just from the sight of me.

This is not deserved. I can be a selfish asshole. A real piece of shit. My mom doesn’t care—she’d always pick a volcano over a pleasant mountain stream. To her, the only sin is to be boring.

“Are you packed for school?” she asks.

“Just about.”

Meaning I’ve packed zero items into my suitcase, but I have considered doing it.

My mom snorts, not fooled for a second. “I bought a couple fresh uniforms for you.”

“What size pants?”

“Thirty-four long. You’re still growing.”

She stands up so she can ruffle my hair. She has to go on tiptoe to do it. I put my arms around her waist and hug her, lifting her off her feet. She laughs and tries to hug me back, but I’m squeezing her too hard.

“It’s a dark day when your kids could send you to your room if they really wanted to,” she says.

“Don’t worry,” I tease her. “I’m still scared of Dad.”

“Thank god.” She laughs.

I’m not actually scared of my dad. I might be if I only ever saw him on his own, with his electric stare and his way of barking orders that seems to snap men to attention like they’ve been hit with a whip. But then my mom sidles up to him, taking little jabs at him, making him laugh when you’re sure he’s never cracked a smile in his life. And you realize he’s got a soul after all, however hard he tries to hide it.

He’s a good man. My mom’s a good woman, the best woman.

I still can’t wait to get out of here.

Because I’m a wild thing, just like my mother was once upon a time.

I don’t want to be cared for and protected.

I want to hunt.

“Make sure you say goodbye to Caleb and Noelle,” my mom says. “Especially Caleb.”

“I will,” I promise.

I know how upset Caleb would be if I didn’t. He tries to act all tough, but he’s a fucking marshmallow on the inside.

Being the oldest is a tricky thing. Your siblings are annoying as fuck for most of your life, but you still love ‘em. You can’t help it.

And I’ll admit, Caleb isn’t shaping up too bad. He’s a little scrapper at school, he might give our cousin Leo a run for his money on the basketball court one of these days, and he can be pretty funny when he works on his material and keeps his anecdotes tight.

Give the kid a couple more years and a couple more inches, and we might be legitimate friends. For now I can still bend him up like a pretzel if he gets lippy.

Noelle is a different beast. She’s smart, and I mean scary smart. She’s like an A.I. computer that might discover the cure for Ebola, or else might decide that humanity is the virus and should be wiped off the earth.

Too early to tell with her. For now she looks damn cute in a pair of pigtails and her Sailor Moon shirt.

My dad comes into the kitchen, freshly showered and wearing an impeccably tailored suit.

His hair turned prematurely silver, which creates an alarming contrast with his bright blue eyes. My mom likes to call him a White Walker when she really wants to piss him off.

“He’s alive,” my dad says when he spots me.

“Where are you going?”

“Breakfast with Uncle Nero.”

“I don’t know if that’s worth dressing up for,” I say. “Since he’s probably gonna show up in coveralls.”

“I’m not taking tips from somebody wearing moon boots.” My dad frowns, shaking his head at my sneakers. “What the hell are those?”

“They’re . . . fashion! ” my mom says, doing jazz hands.

“They’re the re-drop of the Nike Air Mag,” I inform him. “They only made eighty-nine pairs. I could sell these for thirty-five thousand dollars right now. Used!”

“I will pay you thirty-five thousand dollars if I never have to look at them again,” my dad says.

“Tempting. But if I keep trading up, I might just get my hands on a pair of the solid gold OVOs.”

My dad shakes his head at me. “Please tell me you’re keeping at least some of your money in an IRA.”

“Don’t worry, Dad.” I grin. “The nice thing about money . . . is you can always make more.”

Taking my mom’s last apple slice, I head up the floating staircase to the upper level. I was planning to flop down directly on my bed, but I can’t because my mom helpfully dumped my empty suitcase there, along with the fresh new uniforms.

Taking the hint, I chuck the rest of my clothes and books into the suitcase, as well as a nice thick wad of cash wrapped up with rubber bands. That’s my seed money for the semester ahead. I’ll sprinkle that cash amongst the fishermen and the greediest of the school employees, and soon I’ll have my own little Silk Road bringing exotic delicacies onto the island that I can sell to my fellow students for exorbitant prices. Tea and porcelain ain’t got nothin’ on vodka and Molly.

Packing complete, I zip up the suitcase, chuck it on the ground, kick off my sneakers, and roll into bed.

I drift off to sleep counting dollars instead of sheep.