Every Apology Has A Price

From the back cover

Jude has always been shameless about money. When his biological parents pull him from the gutter at fifteen and bring him into their high-society fold, his first question is whether there is a reunion bonus. At his grandfather's seventieth birthday, he records every gold-embossed envelope pressed into his adoptive brother Ian's hands, and the family turns on him.

His father snatches the notebook; his sister Elaine throws it away and tells him to go park cars for tips. Jude does exactly that, splitting eighty-six valet tickets with an old attendant named Joe for two hundred and fifteen dollars, money he says buys rice and beans. In the car, Ian offers to hand over the gifts, and his mother calls him inherently cheap.

Jude points out the allowance he was promised but never received, then bets his two-fifteen that Ian has hidden the cash in his blazer. When his mother lunges at him, the bills scatter across the car floor.