Page 1 of Filthy Rich

Prologue: Jake

Every single person on earth has a story, but most of them don’t like what they’ve written for themselves. A con man’s only real job is to discover the story a person wishes was theirs and give it to them. Or at least, make the person believe that they’re giving it to them. People will pay everything they have and they’ll betray everyone they love to live the story of their heart.

Even if it’s a lie.

That’s why con artists are still around. My dad taught me that if people weren’t lying to themselves, we couldn’t lie to them either. That’s why it’s important to evaluate someone to make sure they’re an easy mark. Finding that person’s the most important part, and making sure they’re someone whose story you can provide.

I’ve heard people get all up in arms. “You’re stealing from them. You’re criminals.” But entertainers have been doing the very same thing for years. When we plonk our money down for a story about how the poor, disheveled girl gets the prince? We’re paying for a lie. It’s just that they’re bilking you out of a few bucks for a few hours.

Con artists provide a more immersive experience that they’ll never ever forget. You could even say we’re teaching them an important lesson their parents should have taught: be careful what you wish for. If the same people would stop being victims and accept the life they had, we’d have no marks. At the end of the day, it’s their fault.

We’re just giving them what they want.

Learning all of that from the time I could talk taught me to be one of the best actors in Hollywood. Unlike most of my peers, I know the camera’s always rolling. In every interaction, in every meeting, I’m always playing a part.

I can’t ever forget who I’m supposed to be in that moment.

But sometimes, in the quiet moments, I wonder who Jake Priest really is. If I wasn’t acting, if I wasn’t working an angle, if I wasn’t selling someone a lie. . .who would I be?

Is it even someone I’d like?

Chapter 1

Octavia

Everyone makes mistakes.

I’ve heard that cliché my entire life. And largely, I’m sure it’s true. But my life’s goal has been never to make any mistakes. I try my best in every situation to make the right choice the very first time.

But there’s one notable exception.

I did something really terrible once, a few months ago. As a judge in a contest, I scored the best person the very worst. I did it specifically so that she’d lose, even though she clearly deserved to win. Her talent was, to someone who was actually trained in the subject, crystal clear. I shouldn’t have done it, but in that moment, I had no choice.

Had she won, she might have turned out just like me.

And having an epic dream coupled with real talent. . . but hiding it. . . is about the worst thing in the world.

I don’t have a choice, but she did, so I forced her to try.

Unlike me, Beatrice Cipriani’s face was pristine—flawless. Mine is the opposite of that. Even if I pursued my dream of becoming a popstar full throttle, there’s no way it would ever happen. Like a plane with a broken turbine, a train with rocks in the engine, or a sprinter with a leaky heart valve, I’m doomed from the start.

My failure was decided many years ago when a cheap plastic wig caught fire and stuck itself to my face, neck, and shoulder. My body healed the damage, but the scars. . .those are permanent.

There are many dreams a girl with a terribly burned face could pursue. If I wanted to paint masterpieces, my face might even be a fascination. If I loved designing video games, I’d be just fine. A show jumper? Horses don’t care what you look like, or at least, I don’t think they do. If my talent lay with crafting unique stories, I could use a cartoon profile photo and no one would ever have to know.

To do those things, I’d probably need a bigger brain.

My one true asset in life is my voice, and people have to look at you for nearly every iteration of success as a singer. Thanks to that fateful day and that cheap, miserable wig, exactly no one wants to look at me. That’s why I’m stuck singing jingles, so no one has to look at me.

I can’t blame people—I don’t want to look at myself either.

It’s interesting that symmetry is the standard of beauty, because that’s the one thing I can never achieve. Ironically, that darn wig plastered itself down my face in very nearly a straight line. The straight line down the center of my face neatly highlights my lack of symmetry. It didn’t help that my body seemed to hate all the treatments—not that it’s totally the doctors’ fault. I hated the bindings and wraps and wasn’t the most compliant patient. The one graft that took well was the one that repaired the burn on my chin. Only a hairline scar remains there now, connecting my lower lip to my jawline, the other side of the graft concealed just below the edge of my face.

The other grafts we tried didn’t go well at all, and it shows.

When we gave up on medical intervention, I had to accept my situation. After that, my vocal talent kind of hurt. So watching someone else with the raw talent to do what I couldn’t blow it on jingles? I just couldn’t help her settle for second best. That’s why, as a judge for the Jello jingle, I voted Beatrice Cipriani down. If I’d known what she’d do next, I’d have let her win. She could have hidden away with me at our jingle agency, a co-worker and a new friend for life.

I hated the idea of her dying inside a little more every day as she wasted her life on commercials, but that darn girl’s been almost worse than the wig, which at least had the decency to stop torturing me once the doctors pried it away from my body, taking my ruined skin along with it.

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