What do I know about him so far?
Well, I know a little bit about his family. He lost his mother and older brother to a car accident a few years ago, and his wealthy father, always distant, ran farther than ever. Eli keeps busy by selling for the Minotaur, a dealer whose face he has never seen, but is known as the ruthless leader of Boston's biggest drug cartel. One day, however, his father skips the country, leaving behind bankruptcy, fraud, and Eli, who has never been more alone.
Enter Jack Brody.
A divorced detective who has lost enough to last a life time. He knows Eli from the boy's multiple encounters with the law, so when Eli is left destitute, Jack impulsively decides to take him in.
This doesn't sit well with Liza Tilmore, another detective--Jack's partner--who also happens to be Jack's ex-wife.
Liza has no time for the 16 year old's BS, just as she has no time for Jack's. However, keeping Eli and Jack safe in the Minotaur's city quickly becomes a full-time job, and Detective Tilmore comes to realize she cannot do it alone.
Enter Tess, the only one still allowed to call Eli "Pip."
She's known Eli all his life, though her life has not been as privileged or as comfortable as his. She grew up with a single mother who worked as a stripper to make ends meet, and she, too, lost an older brother--though her loss was to a shooting by a policeman, and her brother was not a rich playboy but a seller trying to help their mother make ends meet. There is only one cop she has ever trusted--and that cop is working undercover in an attempt to find out who the Minotaur really is.
Elias has worked undercover for three years.
Her success has been meager, but the captain is confident that she is the only one who can crack the drug cartel and expose the Minotaur--if they can ever find out who exactly this Minotaur is.
Rhea, however, is the first of them to die.
She is Elias' girlfriend, uninvolved in the cartel. She teaches kindergarten in urban Boston, and comes home at night to patch Elias up. But somehow, she knows too much--not about Elias, but about the Minotaur, who will do anything it takes to keep their secrets buried.
War has many casualties--and Dray is the second, after an accidental discovery leaves her vulnerable.
Dray is also a high school sophomore, until the day when she walks in on something that no one was supposed to witness. Secrets pile up, and one day they find Dray's body, which is ruled a suicide until her best friend uncovers evidence of something more.
Astor has known Eli, Tess, and Dray since they were all very young, and she is the most devastated by Dray's loss.
Like Tess, Astor grew up near the wharves with a single mother who worked at the same club as Tess' mother did. Astor has dated both Eli and Tess, something which has always been a point of contention in the close-knit group. Despite the fact that one of her friends (Eli) sells for the cartel, Astor remains the most innocent of the group, experimenting occasionally with marijuana but avoiding the harder drugs that Eli sells.
Aron, Tess' twin brother, is Astor's polar opposite in that department, however.
Tess angrily tells Eli to stop selling to her brother, but Eli points out to her that he will just buy street mixtures of the same drugs--mixtures that could potentially be much more dangerous. It is Aron, however, who sees more clearly than the rest in the matters of the heart--and, tragically, in the matter of the Minotaur.
And so, the final question--who is the Minotaur?
No, I'm not going to introduce a different face. You've already seen the face of the Minotaur. Look up. Re-read this list. And see if you can guess--where Eli and the rest fail--which of them is this "unnatural offspring of a woman and a beast, with no natural source of nourishment, who thus devours man for sustenance."
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