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Chapter One
The Rodericks
Brian
“Brian! Get out of bed. You’ll be late for your meeting with Tim Cook,” Dad said as he walked past my bedroom. It was 6:30 AM California time… 6:30 in the morning, and Dad wanted me out of bed already. I hated it. Dad always tried to make me more responsible. “It's good for the family image,” he’d always say.
My father was Coleman Peterson Rodericks, or CPR, as the media fondly referred to him. My father had made his fortune as a private strategist for some of the biggest brands in the United States. He worked silently and was paid heavily for his efforts. When I say he was paid heavily, I mean he was a billionaire. The man had a net worth of three billion dollars, and it kept going up. Dad established Rodericks Consults,a multinational consultancy firm that gave clients the option to sign non-disclosure agreements. Dad kept his business model incognito. It had worked for him in the early days, so why should he fix what wasn’t broken?
Dad got his big break when he helped Quickcom change the world of instant messaging before Facebook became a thing. Dad had earned a whopping three hundred million dollars by the time he was done crafting strategies for Quickcom. He stopped working with them because of creative differences, and the company went under a few years later. Now, I'm not saying the company sunkbecause Dad left, but they did peak when he worked with them behind the scenes; you do the math.
Mom and Dad divorced when we were kids, and he somehow managed to win custody of his five sons; he was a strategist, indeed.
“Brian Peterson Rodericks,” Dad shouted. He did this every morning when he had to walk past a second time because we still had not risen at his command. We were all used to it. “Okay, Dad, I'll get to it. If he needs our help, he can wait a few more hours,” I grumbled and pulled the duvet over my head.
“He's the CEO of Apple—do you know what that means? If Steve Jobs were still alive, that's who you'd be meeting.” Dad’s voice was closer this time. It seemed as if he was about to come into the room himself. At twenty-eight years old, I didn't want him treating me like a kid, especially in front of the house staff.
“Fine. I hope I get a raise once I seal this deal,” I quipped. I’d said this so many times, and the response was always the same: “You earn more money than some CEOs in the United States, Brian.” Dad must’ve gone down the stairs; his voice sounded fainter than before.
“All right, Brian. Get your lazy ass up,” I said to myself as I sat up in bed. A smile beamed across my face when I caught my reflection in the mirror across from my bed. It was a huge, custom-designed, full-body Louis Vuitton mirror. Yeah, LouisVuitton designs custom bedroom mirrors for you if you’re a Rodericks.
My long black hair rested on my barrel chest, and it made me smile. I spent two hours every day in the gym, so it was always nice to see that my hard work was not in vain.
I got up from bed, headed to the bathroom, and relaxed myself in a nice hot bath. Although my usual hot bath was lengthy, I had to cut this one short because of “the meeting.”
***
“Oh, sorry, Brian. I didn't see you there. I was checking the crypto market,” Carson said, bumping into me as I left my bedroom. Carson Peterson Rodericks was my youngest brother and the fifth Rodericks boy.
Yeah, Dad added his other names to ours. Every one of us had that Peterson Rodericks thing going on. I don't know why he did that. I asked him once, and he said something about trying to create a unique set of names for his boys. Well, I think he was just too lazy to come up with middle names for us all. Mom must have had lazy fever, too. They should have just named us Coleman Peterson Rodericks one through five.
“That thing will give you a heart attack or send you and a few others to the hospital with the same Facebook tag,” I responded.
Carson spent way too much time on his phone, checking his Bitcoin. I don't blame him. That thing is a literal diamond mine when it goes up, but its volatility terrifies me.
Carson also worked at dad’s company. He worked in the IT department, but he didn't let that stop him from living like a rock star. We all lived like rock stars, except for Chris. He was as serious as CPR. Dad pretty much allowed us to do whatever we wanted as long as we tended to the family business when needed. Despite being in IT, Carson didn’t look nerdy. You needed to see him in front of a laptop working his magic before you would believe the kid could even work a computer. He was like Tony Stark from the Avengers: a tech genius who lived with no inhibitions.
“Nope. It’ll give me three custom-made Teslas, you'll see,” Carson responded.
“That, I would love to see,” I said, trying to decide whether to put my hair in a knot or let it loose. I enjoyed letting it loose because the ladies really went for it when it was down.
“Hey, is that from the latest Armani suit collection?” Carson asked once he noticed my suit. If there was one thing that kid loved more than dating Hollywood actresses, it was a beautifully crafted suit.
“Oh, yeah. They only made one of this style in the collection,so Brian Peterson Rodericks is the only man in the United States and worldwide to own this masterpiece.” I finally decided to knot my hair, and I walked away with all the confidence in the world.
“You sure as hell aren't going to be the only one wearing it, I can tell you that,” Carson said. Every fiber of my being wanted to protest, but there was no point. He would wear it anyway. The thing about Carson was that he loved the finer things, but he always waited for me to buy them first, then he would raid my closet. I could protest all day, but there wasn’t any point.
“Looking sharp, Brian. Go knock 'em dead,” Dad said as I walked past him in the living room.
“Someone’s all dressed up. Going for a meeting?” Chris asked when I met him in the parking lot. We had sixty-eight cars, so our garage was basically a parking lot. The best thing about it was that no one car belonged to any one person, and we were allowed to drive any one we wanted. If you wanted to drive a particular car on a particular day, all you had to do was wake up early enough to get to it first.
“Yeah, the Apple deal.” I spun around to show off my suit’s fine tailoring.
“You? I thought Carson was handling that meeting. Dad's got some balls.” Chris might have said that sarcastically. Then again, I thought he might have been a tad serious. My brothers had a running joke that I was the most likely to make a deal that would lose the family a huge amount of money, but I didn't know how that joke started, and I didn't care.
“Belief in my abilities, Chris. That's what Dad’s got. He believes in my ability to get the job done,” I said, walking toward one of the Ferraris.
“Okay. You’re going in a Ferrari? Are you late or something? You’re going for a business meeting, Brian, not a night out in Vegas.” Christopher Peterson Rodericks was an exact replica of my father. The resemblance was uncanny, and it went beyond just physical appearance. Chris thought like my father, and he was almost as serious as my father, too.
