Broken: Prologue

My father pours six glasses of fifty-year-old Macallan and hands them out to my brothers and me. We stare out the window, watching the fireworks lighting up the night sky.

My youngest brother, Maddox, looks at his glass and swirls the amber liquid around the base like he doesn’t know what to do with it. He’s only sixteen, but I know for sure that’s not his first drink.

Mason shakes his head and sighs. “Does anyone else feel like it’s weird that it’s just us?”

I nod my agreement. This house is usually so full of people, laughter, raised voices, and music, especially on New Year’s Eve. But tonight there’s only pain and silence.

“We could put the TV on. Watch the ball drop,” my oldest brother, Elijah, suggests.

Drake shakes his head. “Nah. She used to hate that, remember? Was always convinced the time was off by a few seconds.”

Mason laughs. “Remember how she’d always insist on using Great-Grandad’s old Navy diving watch to determine when it was midnight instead?”

I frown. “Where the hell is that thing?”

Maddox reaches into the pocket of his jeans and produces the watch, his eyes wet with tears.

Mason knocks back his Scotch and jumps up from the sofa. “Jesus, it feels so weird without her here. Like this house has no fucking soul anymore. Let’s get the fuck out of here and go somewhere.”

Drake rolls his eyes. “Like where, jerkwad?”

“I dunno. A club or something. A place where there’s life.”

Maddox scowls. “And what about me, dickface?”

“Nobody is going anywhere,” our father barks. “So quit your whining and drink your Scotch.”

Mason sinks back down onto the sofa with a sigh. “Sorry, Pop.”

My father knocks back his drink and stands in front of the window, ensuring he’s in all our eyeline. He stares at the five of us. The James boys. Apple of our mother’s eye. Dalton James has always been a giant of a man, formidable in business and ruthless in his quest to become the man his own father told him he would never be. He made his first billion by the time he was thirty-five. A loving, if strict, father. A man to look up to.

But now his shoulders are slumped in defeat. His suit, once finely tailored to fit the contours of his muscular physique, hangs loose around his shoulders. No less the man I respect more than anyone on this earth, but still a shadow of his former self.

He sucks on his top lip, the way he does when he’s deep in thought or about to impart some of his legendary wisdom. “I have a piece of advice for all you boys. You live by this, and I promise that you’ll never know a day’s heartache in your life.”

Elijah stares up at him. “And what’s that, Dad?”

The five of us wait for him to impart this particular nugget of wisdom.

He clears his throat, his deep gray eyes full of grief. “Never fall in love.”