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Introduction
Located in the dynamic city of Houston, TX, Rivers Wilde is an enclave carved into a parcel of the most valuable and coveted land in all of South East Texas.
The enclave is home to the two families that it’s named after. The Rivers are old, Texas money. Sugar, oil, and natural gas are how they made their fortune. And with that bounty, they helped found the city of Houston.
The Wildes are the new money. The bourgeoisie. They built their wealth in restaurants, grocery stores and real estate.
And they have made a fortune that casts the old money into the shade.
In the 1980s, the oil markets were crashing and the Rivers found themselves hard up for cash. With no other viable options, they sold part of their precious land to the usurpers they’d previously refused to even acknowledge.
Seeds of resentment burrowed deep into the fertile soil of their dislike and grew tenacious roots. Thirty years later, the rivalry continues. Even though, now, no one remembers what started it and just why the blood between the families is so bad.
Today in Rivers Wilde, a new generation is coming to the helm of power in both families. Will they put the past behind them and usher in a new era of cooperation between the two ruling families in Houston? Or will the sins of their fathers continue to cast a shadow over them?
I hope you enjoy finding out!
Welcome to Rivers Wilde.
Prologue
Present day
Rivers Wilde
1
SMOKE AND MIRRORS
REMI
“Please don’t leave angry. Please.” Gigi’s frail voice floats behind me, chasing me like a sinister specter. I’m nearly running by the time I reach the door of her hospital room. I pull it open and look back at her. She looks harmless lying there like that, cocooned in a hospital bed, anchored in place by the network of lines that run from a bandaged spot on her arm. But harmless is the very last thing she’s proven to be.
“I don’t know what kind of game this is. But I don’t want any part of it.”
Her eyes are glassy with tears and her face is as pale as the white sheets she’s lying against. “It’s not a game. Ask your mother. Read that letter.”
“Oh, I’ll be asking her. You stay the fuck away from me.” I point at her with the same hand I’m clutching the envelope she gave me. The slip of paper wrapped around a set of keys weighs nothing, yet my hand aches from holding it. I don’t want to read it.
I step out of the room and stare unseeingly down the corridor. The nurse’s station is a hub of activity—doctors, patients, family members dart past me. I just… stand still and try to process what Gigi Rivers has just told me.
For the first time in a long time, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next.
When my friend Hayes called and asked me to come to the hospital, I didn’t ask why. I got in my car and drove as fast I could.
Our families have been on opposite sides of the most mysterious cold war for almost thirty years now. When we both became the heads of our families around the same time last year, we decided enough was enough.
Since then, he’s become one of my best friends.
I spent the drive, my throat tight with anxiety, my heart hammering, preparing myself to console a him.
Instead, I walked into an ambush.
“Remi. You okay?” Suddenly, Hayes is standing beside me, his hand gripping my shoulder and his face drawn and etched with worry. I shake his hand off and turn so we’re face-to-face. He’s waiting for me to answer and looks as tense as a runner waiting for the crack of the referee’s gun to start his race.
I stare at him; my face feels like granite and the pressure in my jaw from my clenched teeth is giving me a headache. His discomfort grows with each second that passes. I watch him squirm and then ask the question his body language has already answered.
“Did you know what she was going to say to me?”
He closes his eyes for a beat and nods. “Yeah, man. I did. I’m sorry.”
“And how long have you known?” I ask him.
