Chapter One
Huxley
“How’s business?”
The question is innocuous, and delivered in a sweet tone that says my grandmother Catalina Huxley is merely curious. But I know better. The sentiment hidden beneath those two words isI hope your agency fails so you have no choice but to join the firm.
“Great. Got more work than we can handle, so we’re hiring. Why, you know anyone who’s interested?” My words are honeyed, my smile polished as I let out a puff of smoke from my cigar. It’s a vice I indulge in around the Huxley side of the family because I need something to soothe my temper. Sometimes whiskey just isn’t strong enough to cut it.
“Of course.” Her smile remains as glitteringly brilliant as the chandelier over our long table. Everything about her is polished and expensive, from her glossy, dark hair to the deep blue dress that fits her slim form. Very few lines mar her elegant face—just a couple of furrows between her eyebrows that her cosmetic surgeon couldn’t get rid of. They came from years of unconscious frowning while dealing with criminals who deserved to be put behind bars. Underneath that concerned maternal expression is a Machiavellian heart that makes Lucrezia Borgia look like Florence Nightingale. Grandma spares no one, not even her own grandchildren. “I’d love to refer a few.”
“Awesome. Looking forward to meeting them.” She’s going to send me saboteurs. If she could, she’d find a way to sue my agency out of existence, except that she knows that I’d fight back, and I fight dirty. She doesn’t want that kind of mud splattered on her pristine reputation as a highly successful former prosecutor.
Part of me wishes I could just throw my hands up in the air, sayfuck you alland walk out, but some old guilt holds me back—I don’t want Grandma to focus all her intensity on my cousins. They’ve told me to go see a therapist, but what’s the point? No therapist has the power to travel back in time and stop me from being the ignorant moron who endangered his cousins. Ares still bears the scars.
Her housekeeper brings us small plates of tart samplers and coffee. Grandma has a definite preference for desserts, and today it’s bite-sized tiramisu, chiffon cake and some kind of berry-topped custard.
My eyes flick to the gloomy sky outside—a storm is coming. Rain doesn’t bother me, but it’s a good excuse to end this farce early. I should’ve known better when I walked into Grandma’s dining hall and saw no one except her and my mother Jeremiah.
The latter is sipping Merlot and also puffing on a cigar. She must’ve just eviscerated some opposing counsel and won a major victory for her client. Merlot and a cigar is how she celebrates every triumph. If she could, she’d drink her opponent’s blood, but that’s frowned upon these days. And the Huxleys prize their reputation.
Wonder what she’d drink if I finally caved in and agreed to join Huxley & Webber? Maybe her prized Pétrus 2009? A five-figure wine, but she’d find it worth it. I’d opt for hemlock—I’d only join the family law firm if my ad agency went bankrupt and all my money somehow vanished.
“Don’t you think you’re wasting your education?” Mom says conversationally.
Dammit.Need to make an excuse and get out of here.“People do a lot of things with law degrees.” I should just order cards with the statement printed on them and pass them out like Halloween candy to the elders. There’s a reason my cousins call them The Fogeys—TF for short. I give the nickname my stamp of approval.
Her auburn hair glints under the light as she tilts her head and regards me. She got her delicate looks from Grandma, but only idiots underestimate her. That pitiless, cast-iron heart of Grandma’s? Mom got that, too.
“You should reconsider your choice of career,” Grandma declares, probably tired of my resistance.
“And your future,” Mom adds. “What being part of this family means.”
“For the millionth time, I’m not joining the firm.”What’s going on here?It isn’t like them to be so overt about this demand. They gave up that particular mode of convincing me when my ad agency landed its first multimillion-dollar contract.
Not knowing all the facts is unsettling, especially since they obviously want me to play a role. The last time I trusted a family member, I was lied to and used. Not making that mistake again.
Mom’s gaze flicks to the coat of arms above the wall behind Grandma. A trio of silver wolves on a shield with the family motto. “Pietas et unitas,” she murmurs.
“Loyalty and unity,” Grandma says, translating the motto. Like I could ever forget it.
The three words are hammered into you from the moment you’re born into the Huxley family. A special cane is commissioned, with the family motto embossed in silver filigree down the side, as a gift to every Huxley baby.
Just because my father happens to be a degenerate—but highly successful—movie producer doesn’t mean the family passed up the chance to try to indoctrinate me. I got a cane, too, which—last I remember—is somewhere in my closet. Mom and her family were gleeful when Dad had zero interest in or time for me, and let them mold me as they wished.
But their efforts didn’t really take. Probably because I also went to boarding schools in Europe with my six half-brothers, and they weren’t brainwashed into doing whatever their mothers’ families wanted. Besides, it was my half-brother Emmett’s mom who spent more time with me in a single month than my own mother did my entire first eighteen years.
I give both my grandmother and mother a pointed look. “You promised you’d leave me alone if I went to Harvard Law. I never promised to practice law afterward.”
“I thought you were going through a phase.” Grandmother’s tone says she’s disappointed that I’m still going through that phase.
“Huxley & Webber isyourdream.” I spread my hands, encompassing them both. “Not mine.”
“It’s not anyone’sdream, Huxley. It’s the family legacy.”
And the legal empire they built with their partners—the Webbers.
“And we all benefit from it.” Grandmother pauses briefly, looking for an acknowledgment, but I merely stare. “If you’re so averse to the idea of being a lawyer, how about marriage?”
