Chapter 1
Lance
Fourteen Months Later
“Who will be left holding the Calloway and Montgomery reins, and is Roman Montgomery man enough to take over the crumbling empire without a Frederick Lawrence at his side?”
I scoff and click the TV off. The sound cuts out mid-sentence, leaving the small screen in the corner dark and the hum of the refrigerator filling the room.
The Round Table Tavern is oddly quiet when there’s nobody in it.
Grabbing a still-hot wineglass from the dishwasher, I wipe it with a polishing rag and flip the stem upside down to hang above the service bar. It clanks against the others, and Genevieve, the bartender and resident pain in my ass, stops wiping the counter and stares at me like being here is a personal offense.
“I’ve never met a man who frowns more than you,” she says.
“Maybe my face just reacts to bullshit in real time.”
“So, you admit it’s a face problem, then. That’s big of you.”
I flick my chin toward the now-blank TV. “A man just died. What do you want, a celebration?”
“Two men, actually. And from what I know of both, the world’s better off.”
“Because you know so much?”
She doesn’t. She’s lived in town for over a year, moved here for my best friend Art, and she’s barely left his side. Art keeps her stashed in a dingy little studio down the street that smells of stale paint, like she’s a poorly kept secret he can’t risk getting back to his father. And when Art can’t be there himself, he’s got me stepping in as a stand-in guard, despite knowing we’re likely to tear out each other’s throats.
“Aren’t you a Calloway?” Genevieve continues. “I thought your family would be dancing on Marcus’s grave.”
“You trying to butter me up by shit-talking my family’s dead enemies?”
“No.” She wipes down a vodka bottle with a damp cloth. “I couldn’t care less about your family’s weird blood grudge with the Montgomerys. This isn’tRomeo and Juliet.”
She’s not wrong about that, either.
Marcus Montgomery was a patriarch of Rosebrook Falls—the Montgomery side of the invisible line that’s split this town in half since its inception. I’m sure my father celebrated his death the moment it happened. He spent years trying to commandeer Marcus’s half of the town. Too bad it went to shit when Marcus’s “supposed to be dead” son Roman came back and took over the Montgomery empire.
He also decided to fall in love with my baby sister, but I digress.
My brow hitches. “Wrong Calloway sibling. Try my brother Alex if you want someone who’ll play along with references.”
“So you’re giving me permission to cross territories and hang out with your siblings?”
“It wasn’t permission; it was a correction. But no.”
“Oh, relax,” she says. “I’m sure your family wants nothing to do with mere HillPoint peasants like me.”
She puts a hand in front of her, fingers spread like she’s inspecting it for germs.
“And?”
“And that means I don’t know your brothers, so stop looking like I’m about to bite them. I’m not contagious, you know?”
Debatable.
“Why are you so twitchy about it anyway? Is it because Juliette’s hanging out here now that Marcus is dead and she’s fucking his son?”
“Don’t talk about my sister.”
