PROLOGUE
THEO - 8 YEARS AGO
The loud countrymusic blared from ancient speakers as I walked into The Reverse Cowgirl. The name promised a wilder time than the sticky floor and broken neon signs could deliver. The stench of stale beer and a lightbox sign for a brewery that had been broken for quite some time gave the pub a quiet sense of peace.
With Holden turning twenty-one a few days earlier, all four of us were finally old enough to enter. Legally, at least. Holden, Shiloh, Maggie and myself. We were all about to enter our final year of college and we wanted a night out together. Well, all except Shiloh. She just finished her associates degree and she’ll be starting at the California Police Academy soon.
Still, it was good being just the four of us. Even all these years later, I was incredibly grateful for that one Halloween where my baby sister made lifelong friends with one of the Salinger kids, ensuring me and all my siblings would forever be surrounded by people who care about us. In a few days, we’d celebrate the end of summer with the rest of our friends but it was the first time the four us could all legally drink and we wanted to take advantage.
Fuck knows, I needed a lot more than just one drink. I had just buried my father and his wife earlier in the day. I wanted to take the time to reflect on what that meant. Surely, I needed to feel something after the death of a man who donated his sperm to my existence. Fuck. That’s exactly what he was. A sperm donor to me and… my siblings. Tiffany, Zoe, and Connor. And as we recently discovered, to Caterina Bauman. Foster sister to Maggie and Shiloh.
I shrugged out of my black suit jacket and rested it on the bar top.
Smiling, I watched Maggie laugh at something Shiloh said. Her olive skin turned the prettiest shade of pink, the kind of thing men wrote poetry about. But that shy smile, the one she tried to hide, that stole the air from my lungs. It lit up my world. I was a small brilliant thing, like a candle lighting my world. She lowered her eyes and picked up the clear drink in front of her. All signs that Shiloh had made a dirty joke. Maggie wasn’t exactly a prude, but she was the most bashful of all our friends. That included the two girls who were still in high school.
Holden walked up to the bar. He’d already discarded his jacket and tie and undone the top two buttons of his black dress shirt. My friends didn’t attend my father’s funeral because he was a beloved member of our community. Instead, they were there for Tiffany and I. And even my younger siblings.
“What are the plans going forward?” Holden turned to me once he’d attracted the attention of the barman. “You don’t need to do what the will says, you know.”
I was well aware of what my options were “Tiff will be eighteen in a few weeks, she wants me to finish college. She also wants nothing to do with my dad’s money, so she will defer for a few years until she has saved up enough to put herself through school.”
My father had been killed under suspicious circumstances. It took a few weeks for the authorities to release the body since they’d suspected murder. With a single car crash, everything around us was destroyed. We’d all suspected that my father’s business dealings were less than legal, we just didn’t know how deep his evil went.
The most devastating part for us was finding out he was Caterina’s father. She was born into a trafficking ring. The events surrounding the rescue of her and the girls who became her foster sisters, were almost folklore in our town. Shiloh and Maggie were both part of that rescue. The one good thing was that it put us all on a path that led to me being part of her circle of friends. She was in our lives, thankfully. But how were we meant to face her?
Maggie frowned. There was a tightness to her expression I didn’t understand. “She’s not going to college? Or design school?”
“Nope.” I looked at my three friends. They got me through the last few years. Friends since my senior year in high school, they were an excellent support. “Said she’d find a job and go to design school later.”
And then she smiled again, it really was the prettiest thing. Once again, I wrestled with the idea of telling her how I felt. She was dating that douche, Fred Ripper, but she had been toying with the idea of breaking up with him. Maybe she needed an incentive.
Shiloh rested her forearms on the bar. “What about you? You gonna do it?”
“What? Play at being king of my father’s castle? No.” I didn’t look at her.
Maggie took a sip of her drink. Usually, she had something fruity. But it looked like sparkling water. “So, you’re not joining Snow Enterprises?”
According to his will, I was to take over at the helm of Snow Enterprises, the largest weapons manufacture and distribution company in the Northern Hemisphere. “Let the board of directors sort it out. I want nothing to do with their secret projects and government contracts.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Holden lifted a brow and took another sip of his fruity drink.
I was free to do exactly what I wanted without hanging my siblings' well-being over my head. I could fulfill my own dreams. “I will graduate. Because that makes the most sense. But then I plan on joining Shiloh.”
Shiloh had been accepted to the California Police Academy. Single motherhood had changed the course of her plans. Not that she complained. She was a good mom, and she still managed to find her way into law enforcement.
Holden had been notoriously quiet, which was not like him. “Cat got your tongue, dude?”
He shook his head, never cracking a smile. “My dad and I are arguing over my future in the Navy.”
The man was about to start his final year at Annapolis. His dad had been proud when Holden got his letter of acceptance, and was his biggest champion. I could not imagine what his dad was unhappy about.
Maggie turned to him. Her soft voice was a comfort to us all. “What’s going on?”
“I want to enter BUD/S training and he’s not happy about it.” All three of us stared at him and he must’ve realized we had no idea what he was talking about. “SEAL training. I want to be a SEAL.”
Aah. I could see how that would cause some trouble in the Waite household. His mother was a Navy Nurse attached to a SEAL team at the time she was killed. Still, I had no doubt they would figure it out. They always did.
“What about you?” I turned to Maggie. She was almost done with her bachelor’s degree and would likely move straight onto her masters. Even if it was only part time. “Decided on a major?”
