A castoff. A problem. A mistake with a trust fund—that I couldn’t touch until I was married—and tattoos to prove I felt things once.
The Charger tore through the long stretches of empty freeway; the sun trailed low and gold behind me. Gas stations blurred past. I didn’t stop unless I had to. Coffee. Gas. A piss behind a truck stop. Nothing more.
By the time I hit the outer roads of Brookhaven Ridge, the sky had dipped into the bruised shades of twilight. Shadows bled across the windshield in long, deliberate strokes, like the town was painting over anything it didn’t want to be seen. Even the trees looked older here—taller, more severe—as if they’d been standing sentry for centuries, judging every passerby with a rooted kind of contempt.
Everything felt curated. Controlled. Immaculate.
L.A. was nouveau riche chaos—plastic palaces and overpriced trends. Brookhaven Ridge was the opposite: old money arrogance, woven into every brick and wrought iron gate. There was no flash here. Only expectation. Silence. Legacy.
The houses weren’t houses. They were estates—tucked behind limestone walls and manicured hedges so perfect it looked like God herself had trimmed them with gold-plated shears. Driveways rolled out like red carpets. Fountains trickled like whispered secrets. Every home was a throne, and every resident a monarch pretending not to watch.
I passed a wide-lawned Georgian with black shutters and gas lanterns flickering at the door. A kid’s bike leaned against a marble lion statue. I caught sight of a woman in pearls sipping tea on a wraparound porch. She didn’t wave. She just stared.
It made my skin crawl. This wasn’t a town—it was a goddamn mausoleum. Preserved. Polished. Soulless.
My GPS finally crackled to life in a warped, metallic voice: “Your destination is on the left.”
CHAPTER 2
SIN
Islowed as a break in the trees opened to reveal the gated entrance. It looked like something torn from a gothic novel—black iron twisted into thorned vines, stone columns flanking either side like they were built to repel the weak-willed. No keypad. No intercom. Just a brushed-metal placard embedded in the masonry:
EDELWOOD HOUSE
Established 1841
Gravel crackled under my tires as I coasted forward. The gate groaned open with the kind of slow, mechanical dread that made you wonder if it ever truly closed behind you.
The driveway stretched on like a dare—a corridor of perfectly spaced elms and surgical rose bushes. It was too pristine. Too measured. Even the air felt… edited. As I crested the slight hill, the house revealed itself.
Edelwood wasn’t a mansion—it was a monument. A looming, pale-stone Federalist beast with three full stories of narrow black-shuttered windows and a roof the color of storm clouds.Ivy crawled up the east wing like it had earned citizenship. Everything about it was old money, down to the dry, ornamental fountain in the circular drive and the intimidating lack of personal touches. No kids’ toys. No porch lights. No warmth.
This wasn’t a home. This was a shrine to lineage.
I parked the Charger dead-center in front of the double doors—thick oak with black iron studs and a lion’s head knocker. The engine cut off and the last whisper of the song on the radio died.
The silence that followed pressed in on my eardrums. I flicked the butt of my cigarette into the gravel and crushed it beneath my boot. The air here wasn’t just still—it was judgmental. Like the house was already disappointed in me.
Gravel crunched as I moved toward my new home, duffel over one shoulder. My reflection ghosted across the driver’s side window—tattoos, dark curls, bloodshot eyes, and an aura of defiance you could bottle and sell at biker rallies.
Let them see the sin they’d tried to wash out. Let Aunt Victoria see what the family broom had failed to sweep under the rug.
I didn’t knock. I just stood there—posture loose, chin raised, that familiar fuse burning behind my ribs. Because I wasn’t here to behave. I was here because they had no idea what else to do with me.
Thirty seconds later, the door opened with mechanical precision.
Aunt Victoria stood framed in the doorway like she owned not just the house, but the oxygen around it. Her navy pantsuit looked tailored to her bones. Hair pulled into a severe bun. No lipstick. No perfume. Just surgical disdain in every pore.
“You’re late,” she said, her voice crisp as frost.
“Fashionably,” I replied, lighting another cigarette purely out of spite. “Clock never did like me.”
She didn’t blink. “Put that out before you track the stench of wasted potential through my threshold.”
I took a long, exaggerated drag before stubbing it out on the stone step. “You’re welcome.”
She stepped aside. “Shoes off.”
