Prologue

Robert Stadler was a boring man.

He knew that he was a boring man. Was happy with it, even. Boring meant safety. Boring meant quiet nights at home without unnecessary drama. Boring meant that the rent was always paid on time and the lights were never turned off.

The rest of Robert’s family hadn’t been boring. He had spent the entirety of his childhood with his nose pressed into a book, trying to ignore his parent’s screaming matches, his sibling’s quick descent into drug abuse, and the all too frequent visits of law enforcement to their apartment.

It had paid off, however. The scholarships he’d obtained allowing him a full ride at an ivy adjacent school. He didn’t think twice before going into finance. He was tired of being poor. Tired of always living in suspense of what new catastrophe was about to strike and dreading what he’d be asked to sacrifice to fix it.

He’d ended up cutting off the rest of his family a little over a decade after his graduation. It had been a long time coming, but he had held onto the connection out of some misplaced sense of familial guilt and obligation. It had taken a near-intervention from his fiancé in order for him to see the truth about their relationship. All the unpaid ‘loans’, the backhanded compliments, the expectations and sense of entitlement. They weren’t even particularly subtle about it. It was all there in the very nickname they’d given him in the family group chat.

Bob the Walking Bank.

He’d ignored it when it’d first popped up. He worked in the banking industry after all and it wasn’t a secret that he’d loaned all of them money. He figured it was just a joke one of them had come up with. It hadn’t been particularly funny, but they’d never been either, so that wasn’t much of a surprise.

The fact that he had to be sat down by the woman he loved, to have it directly pointed out to him what a shit thing that was to call a family member, showed how much they had managed to brainwash him over the years. It really encapsulated exactly what the rest of his family had felt about him. And that feeling didn’t seem to have much relationship with love or concern; outside of for themselves.

Which was why – almost six years later – it was so utterly devastating to see that name pop up again. Only this time in a text message between his now wife and her affair partner. ‘Bob the Walking Bank’ was apparently paying for their exotic getaway. An expense he’d been told was for her mother’s hospital bills, as well as spending money for his wife to stay with her through chemo.

Bob shivered slightly in the cold as he attempted to take another draw on a smoldering cigarette; coughing almost immediately after. He’d never been tempted to smoke before. Even looked down on his siblings when they used to steal cigarettes from their parents to light up behind the school dumpster. Tonight, however, was a night for bad decisions.

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The sloshing of the bottle in his other hand seemed to agree with him. It also served double duty by reminding him it was there, causing his arm to jerkily bring it up to his lips and swallow down another mouthful; nearly forgetting to move the cigarette out of the way in time.

The abrupt motion caused him to stumble slightly, wishing he had more arms available to him as he bent backward and used his stomach to stabilize himself against the bridge’s railing. Back arched and bottle dangerously close to spilling.

“Whoops!” He laughed to himself as he felt a stream of alcohol run down the back of his arm. “That coulda been dangerous… Good thing for safety railings.”