Page 1 of Caged
PROLOGUE
KIEREN
Fifteen Months Prior to Present Day
Summer Between Sophomore and Junior Year of College, Connecticut
No one gives a fuck if this man survives, so why am I sitting here, waiting for this pathetic coward to wake up?
Who am I kidding? I know why.
I want this fucker to explain himself.
What sins have you committed this time, Father? Did you embezzle away my inheritance as I always suspected you would? Did another one of your investment schemes go belly-up?
Hunt Wealth Management is supposed to be my legacy. My grandfather founded the company and grew it to become one of the most prestigious and trusted asset management firms, sought after by the world’s wealthiest families. Old money billionaires. Quiet money. Ultra-high-net-worth families who have birthed generations of aristocrats, royals, oil tycoons, railroad and shipping barons who struck it rich during the Industrial Revolution, and of course, the upper echelon of theSigma brotherhood. Is Sigma a good ole boys club? Sure. But everyone knows the world runs on the unchecked greed of entitled nepo babies, and if you’re one of the fortunate few, you’re simply playing your part.
My grandfather was not one of the fortunate few. He clawed and scraped and sacrificed his way to the inner circles of Sigma elites. He gave them everything, traded his soul for sovereignty, and then turned the hard-earned fruits of his labor over to my weak excuse of a father who squandered my grandfather’s selflessness on country club memberships, flights on private jets and a grotesque mansion in Connecticut with round-the-clock staff serving a total of three people. Two, really. My mother and me, since my father was hardly home during my childhood, too busy with whateverurgentbusinesshe had to conduct on private islands in the Caribbean.
If my father thinks his infidelity has gone unnoticed, he’d be mistaken, but I don’t think he gives a fuck, and truthfully, I don’t think my mother does either. She’s content to look the other way so long as the credit cards my father provides keep swiping. Plastic surgeons, filler, and Botox are expensive, after all.
While my adolescence certainly reaped the benefits of my parent’s social climbing gluttony, it seems as of late that the legacy I stand to inherit is fucked. The continuous need to refill the Hunt family coffers has made my father reckless. He forgets I’ve worked at Hunt Wealth Management for the past two summers, once I was finally deemed mature enough to be let behind the curtain.
How is it, dear father, that Hunt Wealth Management has some of the highest returns on Wall Street, repeatedly outranking the likes of Blackrock and Goldman Sachs? Would it be the questionable investments made with strange overseas ventures that always seem to deliver a very specific return, almost as if it wereguaranteed?Miraculous, really. Earning aconsistent fee for managing your clients’ money certainly does help to maintain your garish lifestyle, doesn’t it? Last I checked, HWM had three billion dollars in assets under management, and when you factor in an average annual fee of one percent, it pencils out to quite a comfortable living. Frankly, I’m surprised the SEC or FINRA hasn’t come knocking, but everyone has a price.
If my grandfather wasn’t rapidly deteriorating from dementia, he’d be disgusted. I think he knew the type of imbecile my father would become, which is why he stashed a sizable portion of his wealth in a trust fund with me as the sole beneficiary. The only obstacles standing in my way of accessing said trust fund are that I must attend Dornell University, become a member of Sigma fraternity, and graduate to my father’s satisfaction, whatever the fuck that means. I’ve never spoken to my father about his definition ofsatisfactory, but I’m sure the conniving motherfucker will find a way to hold this over my head as leverage to siphon off a portion of my inheritance for himself.
My father and his schemes. I expected in time he would trip over his own two feet, falling victim to his stupidity and avarice, but I hadn’t predicted it would be this soon. A heads-up would have been appreciated, as I’m sure I’ll have to clean up whatever pile of shit he’s so graciously left me.
I pick at my jeans, waiting as I have done for the past two weeks, monitoring the rise and fall of my father’s chest. The nurses claimed he was lucid this morning while they changed his bedding, but I’m not surprised he decided to return to his catatonic state the moment I entered the room. The fucker probably heard my footsteps approaching from down the hall and decided now was the time to become the world’s worst actor.
I lift my head, zoning out as I focus on the navy and cream-colored French toile wallpaper, hideous in its clichépredictability. New money masquerading as old money. Of course, the decorator my mom hired would have selected this pattern to fit the persona. Scenes of lovers dancing, picnicking, tending to lambs and other subservient farm animals spread across the wall remind me of Monroe. I believe we’re approaching the two-month anniversary of her telling me to go fuck myself, although admittedly, between my own hospital stay and recovery, I’ve lost track. She’s as much to blame as I am, perhaps more. She fed the flames of my demons, wanting what only I could give her, until one day, she conveniently decided I was too much. Then she left.
She fucking left me, and if I ever make my way back to her, I will make her pay. You don’t get to take and take and take, to standby while I become a shell of myself, then abandon me like garbage once you’ve had your fill. You swallow the bad with the good. That’s real love. She used me, used my name, my clout. Everything she is, the person she has become, is thanks to me.
The dichotomy of her existence claws at my mind, yet the absence of her is suffocating. I want to keep her in a cage for the rest of eternity. I want to bind her to me, tie her down with chains, drain every last drop of essence from her body. Our link may be temporarily severed, but once I get my mind right, I’ll make my grand return, and never let her leave me again.
Blinking away my reverie, I huff a sigh of frustration at my vegetated sperm donor who continues to feign incapacitation. Part of me wants to rip out the designer pillow positioned under his fragile head and smother him. How easy it would be to end his bullshit reign. Right here. Right now.
A knowing grin spreads across my face.
No, I’ll deal him a gift far worse than death.
I rise from the padded armchair and stride to his bedside, pulling back the navy duvet cover, no doubt intentionally picked to complement the repulsive wallpaper. His hand is speckledwith sun spots and patches of chapped skin from age. A bulbous, black and gold ring adorned with the Sigma emblem encircles his pinky finger. My grandfather’s ring, passed down to my father when he was initiated into Sigma. A ring which now rightfully belongs to me. If he were a selfless man, a caring father, he would have given me this ring my freshman year when I pledged the fraternity. Of course, he didn’t.
“Not until I earned it, isn’t that what you said, Father?” I ask aloud to the quiet room. “Well, I’d say at this point, I’ve fucking earned it.”
I’ve bled Sigma black and gold for the last two years, willingly destroyed myself in the process. In seven months, I will take over as president of the oldest fraternity in the nation, and not just any Sigma chapter, the Founding Chapter. This ring, and the legacy it bears, are mine.
I work the oversized ring from his finger, his crepey skin bunching around the joints as I jiggle it off. His eyes flare open like a resurrected dead man, just as I fucking expected, the instant I’ve slipped the piece free.
“Father. Welcome back to the land of the living,” I smirk as I slide the cool metal down the length of my own pinky finger, admiring how perfectly it fits.
He furrows his brows, craning his neck to see his hand, his bare hand, and I grin at his malice-ridden face.
“Mine now, don’t you think?” I state in conquest.
His head settles back against the pillow in defeat as he blinks his eyes, realizing he’s been duped into waking up from his supposedcoma.
