The Legend Read online

  The Legend

  Dylan Allen

  Edited by

  Marla esposito of Proofing Style

  Proofread by

  Gemma Wooley Gem Precise Proofreads

  Cover Art by

  Lori Jackson Designs

  Copyright © 2019 by Dylan Allen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  About the Author

  Rivers Wilde Series

  The Legacy

  Symbols of Love Series:

  Rise

  Remember

  Release

  Standalones:

  Thicker Than Water

  Envy

  Dylan Allen is a Texas girl with a serious case of wanderlust.

  A self-proclaimed happily ever junkie, she loves creating stories where her characters chase their own happy endings.

  When she isn’t writing or reading, eating or cooking, she and her family are planning their next adventure.

  I love talking to you guys! Feel free to send me an email at [email protected].

  Are you on Facebook? If you are, then PLEASE join my private reader group, Dylan’s Day Dreamer. My Day Dreamers get exclusive giveaways, sneak peaks, glimpses into my every day, and lots of other fun bookish things! Click here to join and make sure you introduce yourself.

  You can find me on all the following social and book related platforms:

  Book+Main Bites

  FOR MY TINA…

  THANKS FOR BELIEVING IN ME.

  AND, FOR NOT BEING A VILLAIN.

  LOVE YOU,

  DC

  … ALL THE MAGIC I HAVE KNOWN, I’VE HAD TO MAKE MYSELF.”

  FROM MAGIC, A POEM BY SHEL SILVERSTEIN

  Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue

  1. SMOKE AND MIRRORS

  I. The Start

  1. LEGENDS AND LIES

  2. BAE WATCH

  3. TO BE READ

  4. THE LEGEND

  5. SQUARE

  6. GO AHEAD AND TOUCH

  7. BITTER HIGH

  8. FOOL FOR YOU

  9. CASA

  10. EVERYTHING

  11. FIRSTS

  12. PARTY

  13. MIDNIGHT

  14. GONE

  II. The In Between

  15. DONE

  16. SURPRISE

  17. WINDFALL

  18. CHANGES

  19. THE WEDDING

  20. TRY

  21. ECLIPSE

  III. Again

  22. CONCRETE JUNGLE

  23. MISSING

  24. FOUND

  25. BURNING

  26. CATCHING UP

  27. I REMEMBER

  28. COMPLICATIONS

  29. TIME

  30. GROWN

  31. FIND ME

  32. YOURS

  33. SURPRISE

  34. JOHN DOE

  35. BROTHERS

  36. THREE CONVERSATIONS AND A FUCK UP

  37. THE TRUTH

  38. CERTAIN

  39. ALL LEGENDS ARE LIES

  40. NOT ENOUGH

  41. DECIDE

  42. WHITE KNIGHT

  43. CHARMED

  44. LOVE ME LIKE THAT

  45. EPILOGUE

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Dylan Allen

  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.

  He grimaces in remorse. “Two weeks ago.”

  “You’ve known this shit for two weeks and you didn’t think to fucking tell me, Haye
s?” Surprise and a sense of being betrayed make me take a step back. I peer at him, trying to see how I missed that he’d been keeping something like this from me for so long.

  His face twists up, too and he glances around. “Let’s go talk somewhere else.” He turns without waiting for me to respond and opens a door a few feet away. I follow him inside the room.

  “She wasn’t sure you didn’t already know. I wasn’t sure either. And the last couple of weeks have been a total nightmare.”

  “None of that shit can be true. How the fuck can it be true. Things like that don’t happen. That would mean we are brothers, Hayes.” I look at him like he’s lost his mind.

  He looks back at me with patient sympathy.

  I shake my head in denial. “My father died. I have pictures from his funeral. How could they have held a funeral if he wasn’t dead, man?”

  Hayes doesn’t respond. He just watches me, like he’s waiting for me to answer my own question.

  “What?” I snap.

  “Have you seen his death certificate?”

  “Why the hell would I have seen his death certificate. Have you seen your father’s?” I challenge him.

  He only shrugs.

  “I was in the room with my father when he died. You weren’t even old enough to remember what yours looked like, much less exactly when he died,” he says, that patient sympathy still in place.

  The knot forming in my gut intensifies, and I lean back against the door and stare at the ceiling as I think about the pictures from my father’s funeral.

  I was only two. I don’t remember anything. But how could my mother and grandfather have told such a lie? My grandfather, before he died, had been my mentor and my best friend. We talked about my father all the time. He couldn’t have looked me in the face and lied the way he did. I clutch the doorknob and my sweaty palms slip off it. My heart is racing faster than I thought possible.

  What else have they lied about?

  “Remi.”

  I open my eyes and find Hayes watching me, his lips pursed, his eyes full of sympathy. “I know. It’s a total head job. I’ve only had a couple of weeks to process it. If this hadn’t happened, I still wouldn’t be speaking to Gigi. It’s fucked me up. I’ve spent my whole life thinking my father was someone else, too. On top of that, the woman who I’ve thought of as my aunt is really my mother. The man who I’ve come to think of as one of my best friends is actually my half-brother.”

  Each of his statements hit me hard. I can’t wrap my head around any of that. “Why should we believe them now? What if this is a lie?” I say and even to my own ears, it sounds like a wish, rather than an accusation.

  “We both know it’s not,” he says, his voice grave and hushed.

  I stare at him for a beat letting myself imagine that everything they’re saying is true. I drop a wall in front of the wave of panic that is starting to build in my gut.

  Not now.

  “There’s something wrong here.” I push back.

  He nods, but he doesn’t back down. “There’s plenty wrong. Especially on your side of things. But, it’s not a lie. Go ask your mother. When you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here.” Then, he steps around me, opens the room door and walks out.

  I pull out my phone and call my assistant. “Rachel, I’m on my way to Wilde House, meet me there.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m on my way,” she says without missing a beat.

  “Before you leave, visit legal and ask them to print you a copy of my father’s death certificate.”

  I’m met with silence.

  “I know it’s an odd request. But I need you to get it. Right now. Do you understand?”

  “Ye-Yes, sir. I do.” She sounds uncertain, but I know she’ll get it the minute we hang up.

  “I’ll see you at the house.”

  “Should I let your mother know to expect us?”

  “No.”

  * * *

  “Mother!” My shout ricochets off the ceiling of Wilde House’s vaulted ceiling foyer. I fling the door closed behind me and it slams so hard that one of the geometric shaped plates of glass cracks.

  “Remi, wait.” Rachel comes rushing out of the sitting room on the right. She is panting, her eyes wide with panic, and her arms stretched out ahead of her reaching for me.

  “Wait for what?”

  I walk right past her on my way to the stairs. All I can think about is getting up to my mother’s office and making her tell me the truth.

  She grabs my arm to still me as I start to stride past her. “Before I tell you where she is, I need to tell you something.”

  I pull my arm out of her grasp and narrow my eyes at her. “What do you mean, tell me where she is? Where would she be but in her office?”

  “I’ve worked for you since you a were boy. But—your mother has always been my employer. I did the job she paid me to do. But I want you to know that as much as I could, I have given you my loyalty.”

  My blood runs cold. “What do you mean, as much as you could? What did she pay you to do?”

  She squeezes her eyes shut and pulls in a deep breath but doesn’t say anything.

  “Never mind. I’ll make her tell me herself.” I step around her and start toward the door.

  “I assume, that somehow, you’ve learned the truth about your father.” The frayed edge of panic that accompanies her explosive statement stops me dead in my tracks. I turn around slowly and look at her as if I’m seeing her for the first time. Her dark, unruly hair is caught in its normal haphazard bun. Her face is lightly made up, per usual. She’s wearing one of her trademark muted gray skirt suits. Everything looks the same, but it’s not. Not even a little…

  “So, it’s true?”

  Her expression is stoic, and she squares her shoulders. “It is true.”

  My knees threaten to buckle. “And you’ve known?”

  “I have helped your family keep the secret. It’s what I was paid to do. That, among other things.”

  “Where is she?” I ask her. She squeezes her eyes shut like a child who’s trying to avoid looking at something scary. Her fists are clenched at her sides and her body is rigid with tension.

  “I will be tendering my resignation. I believe it’s best that all of this has come to light. I know you’ll never trust me again, and I don’t blame you. I did as your mother asked because I needed my job. But, I do deeply regret that fact. I’ve known you since you were a little boy and I’ve loved you like—”

  “Rachel, I’m not in the mood for a sentimental moment right now. Right now? I need to talk to my mother. Where the fuck is she?” I grit out my demand.

  She gulps and steps back. “She is currently in her office attempting to shred documents.”

  “You told her I was coming?” I ask, unable to believe the level of betrayal. I’ve trusted this woman with everything.

  “No. But when I requested these from Legal, they did. But, I have this.” She holds up a black electrical cord in the air like she’s holding a trophy.

  “She can’t shred anything. I just wanted the chance to tell you the truth before I left. I’ll go now. I am so sorry.”

  Her eyes are sorrowful as she turns to walk away.

  I let her go. And even though her betrayal hurts, there’s nothing I can do about it right now. My only priority is finding my mother and getting answers.

  I walk upstairs, slowly. With each step, I prepare for what lies ahead.

  My entire life upended in just one hour. And now, I’m walking toward a room where my mother is attempting to destroy evidence of what I’ve just learned.

  Our relationship is already nonexistent. I keep her far away from anything that’s important to me.

  She’s a liar.

  She has stolen so much from me.

  I want to tear her limb from limb. But that would mean touching her and I’m not sure I ever want to do that again.

  I push the door open and find her on her knees in front of the shredder, her hands moving fran
tically even as she turns to face me.

  “Remi,” she gasps, her face ashen. She jumps up and puts her hands out in front of her as if she’s afraid. It incenses me even further.

  I narrow my eyes at her, rage straining the muscles in my face as I try to keep it in check. “You act as if I am the violent one. As if I’m dangerous. Have you lied so much that you’ve forgotten what it is to tell the fucking truth?”

  I can’t begin to fathom the lengths they went to in order to keep their secrets. In all of the years that I’ve mourned my grandfather, I never imagined that I’d ever be glad he was gone.

  I can’t imagine how I would feel having this conversation with him. The thought alone is more painful than I can bear.

  She shrinks, her chest caving in before she recovers, squares her jaw and holds my angry gaze with her defiant one. I see so much of myself in her right now, it frightens me. Would I have been capable of it?

  “Remi, we wanted to protect you.” She says with no remorse.