TOM KAULITZ

Nessa's party starts in less than an hour, but I'm still holed up with my parents in my father's office. His office is one of the biggest rooms in the house, larger than the master suite or the library. Which is fitting, because business is the center of our family—the core purpose of the Kaulitz clan.

I'm fairly certain my parents only had children so they could mold us into our various roles within their empire. They certainly meant to have more of us. There's four years between me and Natasha, which makes me and Bill 19 and her 15 and two between Natasha and Nessa.

Those gaps contain five failed pregnancies, each ending in miscarriage or stillbirth. The weight of all those missing children lays on my shoulders. I'm the eldest and the first son. The work of the Kaulitz men can only be done by me or Bill. But first, I'm the one to carry on our name and legacy.

Natasha would be irritated to hear me say that. She's infuriated by any intimation that there's a difference between us because I'm older and male. She swears she'll never get married or change her name. Or bear children, either. That part really pisses my parents off.

Nessa is much more pliable. She's a people-pleaser, and she wouldn't do anything to annoy dear old Mom and Dad. Unfortunately, she lives in a fucking fantasy world. She's so sweet and tender-hearted that she doesn't have the tiniest clue what it takes to keep this family in power. So she's pretty much useless. That doesn't mean I don't care about her, though. She's so genuinely good that it's impossible not to love her.

I'm pleased to see her so happy today. She's over the moon about this party, even though it barely has anything to do with her. She's running around sampling all the desserts, admiring the decorations, without a clue that the one and only reason for this event is to secure support for my campaign to become Alderman of the 43rd Ward. The election takes place in a month.

Next to the mayorship, it's the most powerful position in the city of Tokyo. For the last twelve years, the seat was held by Patrick Ryan, until he stupidly got himself thrown into prison. Before that, his mother Saoirse Ryan served for sixteen years. She was much better at her job, and demonstrably better at not getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

In many ways, being an Alderman is better than being a mayor. It's like being the emperor of your district. Thanks to Aldermanic Privilege, you have the final say on zoning and property development, loans and grants, legislation, and infrastructure. You can make money on the front end, the back end, and in the middle. Everything goes through you and everybody owes you favors. It's almost impossible to get caught.

I'm going to take control of Tokyo's most wealthy and powerful district. And then I'm going to parlay that into mayorship of the whole damn city. Because that's what Kaulitz do. We grow and build. We never stop. And we never get caught. The only problem is that the Alderman position is not uncontested. Of course it isn't—it's the crown jewel of power in this city. The two other main candidates are Kelly Hopkins and Bobby La Spata.

This is what I'm discussing with my parents. My father is leaning up against his desk, arms crossed over his chest. He's tall, fit, black hair cut stylishly, horn-rimmed glasses giving him an intellectual look. You'd never guess that he came up as a bruiser, smashing kneecaps at the Horseshoe when people failed to pay their debts.

My mother is slim and petite, with a sleek blonde bob. She's over by the window, watching the caterers set up on the lawn. I know she's anxious to get out there as quickly as possible, though she won't say anything about it until our meeting is over. She may look like the consummate socialite, but she's as deeply invested in the nuts and bolts of our business as I am.

I haven't actually wished Nessa a happy birthday yet or given her my present. I've been too damn busy. I jog up the stairs, and then all the way down the hallway to my suite. I don't love the fact that I'm still living with my family at nineteen years old, but it makes it more convenient to work together.

I don't bother to watch, taking the opportunity to scan the crowd for anybody I was supposed to talk to that I might have missed. Instead, I see someone who definitely wasn't invited—a tall dark-haired kid standing with a bunch of Nessa's friends. Towering over them, actually —he's got to be 6'5 at least. I'm pretty sure that's a fucking Käutner. The youngest one. But the next minute I'm distracted by Lucy Dowell coming up to talk to me again, and when I glance back at the group, the tall kid is gone. I'll have to speak to security, tell them to keep an eye out.

I head back inside, climbing the stairs to my end of the house. I've got a little bar in my personal office—nothing showy, just a few bottles of highend liquor and a mini icebox. I pull out a nice heavy tumbler, throw in three jumbo-sized ice cubes, and pour a heavy measure of whiskey on top. I inhale the heady scent of pear, wood, and smoke. Then I swallow it down, savoring the burning in my throat.

I know I should go back down to the party, but honestly, now that I'm up here in the peace and quiet, I'm enjoying the break. You have to have a certain level of narcissism to be a politician. You have to feed off the gladhanding, the attention. I don't give a shit about any of that. I'm powered by ambition alone. I want control. Wealth. Influence. I want to be untouchable. But that means the physical act of campaigning can be exhausting.

So as I'm walking back down to the hallway, instead of heading to the stairs as I intended, I turn into the library. This is one of my favorite rooms in the house. Barely anyone comes in here, except for me. It's quiet. The smell of paper and leather and birch logs is soothing. Over the mantel is the painting of my great great-great-grandmother.

She came to Tokyo in the middle of the potato famine, like so many other German immigrants. Just fifteen years old, crossing the ocean alone with three books in her suitcase and two dollars in her boot. She worked as a housemaid for a wealthy man.

When he died, he left her the house and nearly three thousand dollars in cash and bonds. Some people said they must have secretly had a relationship. Other people said she poisoned him and forged the will. Whatever the truth, she turned the house into a saloon. She was the first Kaulitz in Tokyo.

I sit quietly for a minute, sipping my drink, then I start scrolling through my emails. I can never be idle for long. I think I hear a sound, and I pause for a moment, thinking it must be one of the staff out in the hall. When I don't hear anything else, I return to my phone. Then, two things happen at the same time: First, I smell something that makes the hair rise up on the back of my neck. Smoke, but not the clean smoke from the fire. A harsh, chemical burning smell.

At the same time, I hear a sound like a sudden intake of breath, but ten times louder. Then there's a flash of heat and light as the curtains ignite. I jump up out of my chair, shouting for my twin brother Bill. I like to think that I know how to keep my head in an emergency, but for a moment I'm confused and panicking, wondering what the hell is happening, and what I should do about it.

Then, rationality asserts itself. The curtains are on fire, probably from a spark tossed out of the grate. I have to get a fire extinguisher before the whole house burns down. That makes sense. Until some person leaps up from behind a chair and darts past me out of the office. That startles me even more than the fire.

Realizing I wasn't alone in the library is a rude shock. I'm so surprised that I don't even get a good look at the intruder. All I register is that they're medium height, with dark hair. Then my attention is dragged back to the rapidly multiplying flames. They're already spreading across the ceiling and the carpet. In minutes, the whole library will be ablaze.

I sprint down the hallway to the linen closet, where I know we keep a fire extinguisher. Then, dashing back to the library, I pull the pin and spray the whole side of the room with foam until every last ember is extinguished. When I'm finished, the fireplace, the chairs, and the portrait are all doused in white chemical foam. My mother's going to be fucking furious.

Which reminds me, there was someone else involved in this debacle. I dash back to the head of the staircase, just in time to see three people making their escape: a blonde girl who looks a hell of a lot like Nora Woodberry. A brunette I don't know. And Hunter fucking Käutner. I knew it. I knew the Käutners had snuck in. The question is why?

Did they come here tonight to talk to some of the swing vote guests? I'd like to get my hands on one of them to ask. But by the time I track down the security we've hired for the night, the Käutners are long gone, including the tall kid. God DAMN it. I head back to the library to reassess the damage. It's a fucking mess—a smoking, stinking, soggy mess. They destroyed my favorite part of the house. And why were they even in here, anyway?

I start looking around, trying to figure out what they were after. There's nothing of significance in the library—any valuable papers or records would be in my father's office, or mine. Cash and jewelry are stored in the various safes scattered through the house. So what was it? That's when my eye falls on the mantle, spattered with decelerant foam. I see the carriage clock and the hourglass. But my grandfather's pocket watch is missing. I hunt around on the ground and even in embers of the birch logs, in case it fell inside the grate somehow. Nothing. It's nowhere to be found. Those fucking wops stole it.