out the spaghetti. “It was your first day at work. I wanted to do something nice for you.”
I peck his cheek, then pick up the salad bowl, grab the dressing from the fridge, and bring it to the table. Dad’s there a minute later with two mounded plates of spaghetti with sauce. He drops one on the table in front of me and lowers himself into his chair at the end of the table with the other.
“I thought you said there was garlic bread,” I say, looking around the table.
The left side of his face squints in chagrin. “It burned while I was trying to save the meatballs.”
I can’t stop the laugh that erupts out of me.
Dad raises his bushy eyebrows at me. “Poking fun at your poor old dad?”
“No, Dad.” I reach across and pat his hand. He’s just so helpless. “This is awesome. Really. Thanks for cooking.”
Yep, this is why I’m here.
Chapter 3
Rob
I wake up in a cold sweat, bound to my feet, the solid butt of my Glock G30S already firmly in my palm. But as I stab the gun into the dark of the room, the realization that it was only a dream seeps through my bones. I thought I’d been more successful than Sherm at shaking the image of what happened the night that goon came for us. Guess I was fooling myself.
Forgetting I killed a man with my bare hands isn’t as easy as I’d hoped.
But I had no choice. He had a gun pointed at my baby brother. So I jumped him, snapped his neck.
And then we ran and never looked back.
I lower the gun, give my hammering heart a second to settle before fishing my sweatpants off the end of my bed and tugging them on. The floorboards groan under my weight as I stand.
I scrub the sweat off my face with a forearm, then glance to Sherm’s bed. My heart shoots right back into overdrive when I see that his covers are in a pile on the floor and the twin bed is empty. I lead with the Glock as I move toward the window, but through the pounding of blood in my ears and my rasping breath, I hear soft voices coming through the wall from the bedroom next door. I brace my hands against the windowsill, drag in a measured breath.
When I’ve got the adrenaline rush mostly in check, I pad into the hall. I hesitate outside Lee’s room when I hear Sherm’s voice whispering, “. . . and she had a shark’s jaw.”
I tip my forehead into my sister’s door, relieved to hear my little brother’s voice after so long.
“You know, there are real live sharks in the ocean right out there,” Lee answers, her voice just above a whisper.
“Seriously?” Sherm asks. There’s the awe of only the truly innocent in his voice.
I shove the Glock into the waistband of my sweats, brace a hand against the wall outside their door, hang my head. When I was nine, I was still innocent too. Sixteen years later, I can’t even see innocent in the rearview mirror anymore.
“Seriously,” Lee answers. “Maybe we can go out in a boat and see one.”
When I open the door and peek through, the moonlight illuminates Sherm, on his stomach under Lee’s covers. Lee’s on her side, her head propped on an elbow, rubbing his back.
It shouldn’t surprise me that he came to her when he was scared, but it stings a little that the thing he was scared of was probably me.
“Why don’t you try going back to sleep,” Lee says. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”
Sherm squirms deeper into the pillow. “Lee?” he asks, his voice muffled.
“What, Sherm?” she answers, laying her head down next to his.
There’s weight to the silence before Sherm asks, “Are they coming?”
My rib cage tightens, making my next breath rasp loudly in the cold silence of the dark hallway.
“We’re safe here, Sherm,” Lee answers. “I promise.”
“When can we go home?” he whispers.
There’s a long second where Lee doesn’t answer. When she finally does, it’s on a weary sigh. “I wish I knew, buddy.”
The sadness in her voice tugs at the deepest part of me. I need to go back and set things right in Chicago before I can bring my family home. I haven’t told her my plan yet because I know she’s going to be all kinds of pissed that I’m leaving her here to deal with the kids. My plan needs to be ironclad before I break it