Introduction
Arden Landry wakes up in an alley with blood on his face, no memory of how he got there, and only one thought in his head.
Go home.
But home is not the same place he remembers.
His parents are gone. His brother Ayven is no longer the college kid Arden expects to find. And the world keeps insisting Arden is twenty-four, even though the last thing he remembers is being fifteen.
To Arden, no time has passed.
To Ayven, six years of anger, grief, and blame have stood between them.
Now Arden is trapped in a life he does not remember living, surrounded by people who know a version of him he cannot find inside himself. As a police investigation begins digging into what happened to him in that alley, old secrets start clawing their way back to the surface, including the truth about the night that destroyed the Landry family.
With help from familiar faces Levi Tanner and Gavin Navarro, Ayven must figure out how to protect the brother he once loved, the brother he learned to hate, and the brother standing in front of him now.
Because Arden may not remember who he became.
But everyone else does.
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This story is connected to the vast Brotherhood universe that sits at the heart of all my stories.
You’ve met Levi and Gavin inKnocking on Yesterday’s DoorandWhat the Storm Left Behindthrough their personal lives, their family, and the people they love. Now, inBefore I Became Him, you’ll get to see them in their professional world too—Levi as the steady advocate who knows what it means to be lost, and Gavin as the legal shield standing between a vulnerable young man and a system that does not always know how to be gentle.
At its core, this is still a Brotherhood story. It is about blood family, chosen family, grief, blame, protection, and the painful, complicated road back to someone you thought you had lost.
