Chapter 1
I don't remember much about the accident.
I was only twelve at the time.
My mother's boyfriend took me home and tried to kiss me when he found out my mother wasn't there. He was a powerful man, but I didn't understand that at the time. When I pulled away from him, he hit me. He said he owned me and my mother. He tried again and I punched him. I'd never been so scared in my life. I ran from his car and hid at my neighbor's house.
When I told my mother, she was furious with him. I'd never seen her so angry. She pulled out our suitcases and began tossing things into them.
“Pack a bag. We're going to your aunt's house. Be sure to bring Nan's book,” she'd told me, pointing to the small bookshelf in our living room. The book was an heirloom bible, passed down from generation to generation. It never left the shelf, but it was always in our house. I knew we were officially settled somewhere when the bible went up on the shelf.
That's how I knew that this was serious. The bible coming off the shelf meant we were leaving.
If I had known what was going to happen, I would have begged her to stay with me. I would have kept her with me and we would have run away together. Sometimes I blame myself, but I know that I couldn't have known. It wasn't my fault.
It was his.
We were almost packed when she got a phone call. It was him. Her boyfriend. She said she was busy, but he said it would only take a moment. He had something for her. She tried to tell him no, but he wasn't the type of man to take that for an answer.
She shut her suitcase hard enough to shake the bed and called her sister, but this time she kept the door shut. I didn't hear that conversation.
“Remember Nan's book,” she said, picking up her purse. “It's important. I have to go do this or he'll chase us forever. I'll be right back.”
She kissed my forehead and held me to her, her heart pounding in her chest.
“I love you, pumpkin.” Those were her last words to me. “I love you so much.”
Then she was gone. She wore a yellow sweater and a soft gray dress. Her dark hair was up in a ponytail.
The next time I saw her was at the morgue. There had been a car accident. They said she hadn't been wearing a seat belt and had been ejected from the car. That didn't make any sense to me. My mother was religious about seat belts. She made sure she wore hers even just driving across the parking lot. She wouldn't even start the car until I had mine buckled.
Even then, something felt wrong about her death. Everyone kept avoiding saying something. My uncle came, but even he couldn't seem to get any information out of them. I knew that he was a powerful businessman, yet everyone seemed to avoid telling him anything.
I was young, but I remember everyone looking nervous. They wouldn't answer any of our questions.
“You're a part of our family now,” my Aunt Sophie told me. “You're safe with us.”
She'd held my hand when I went to identify my mother. She had the same dark brown hair and nose as my mother. Her eyes were blue instead of brown. She didn't smile as much as my mother, though.
No one told me much about the car accident. I'd watched enough crime shows to know that someone should have wanted to speak with me about what happened, but no one ever came.
Now that I'm older, I think I know why.
Senator John Norwood murdered my mother and paid to have it covered up.
Ten years after the accident...
* * *
“The boss doesn't like you being here,” Ethan says, crossing his arms. The muscles flex under his long sleeved t-shirt.
“Well, then he shouldn't have put my name on the lease,” I reply, closing the door to the warehouse and making sure it locks. “I'm the one who has to answer the security company calls when the alarm goes off.”
Ethan looks around the deserted warehouse parking lot. “You could have called me.”
I sigh and cross my arms. “I did. You were busy.”
Ethan isn't blood family, but he is family. My uncle took him in when Ethan got out of the military and had no where to go. My uncle needed reliable muscle, and Ethan provides that plus enough common sense to make him valuable.
He's big, strong, scary, and loyal to my aunt and uncle. He treats me like a big brother who has to babysit all the time. I feel like I'm a two year old kid that needs constant supervision the way he watches out for me sometimes.
He glares at me, but I don't back down. Just because he has ten years and fifty pounds of muscle on me, I won't let him intimidate me. He could beat me in a fight with both hands tied behind his back. I know he's deadly. Still, I'm not about to show any weakness.
“Besides, it was nothing. The sensor just didn't fit right. Again,” I tell him. I know that we've both walked around the place twice. Nothing is missing. Nothing is out of place. This is the third time this week this exact sensor has done this.
“You know I'm still telling the boss,” Ethan says. Always loyal to the family.
“You think I won't?” I ask, raising my eyebrows. “I always tell him. That's probably why he put my name on the lease. If he'd just let me replace the sensor, then we wouldn't have to deal with this crap.”
Ethan just glares at me.
“What are you doing out here anyway?” I ask. It's a cold November afternoon in New York. There's snow coming later tonight and I can feel the temperature dropping already. I want to get back to the city. “When I called earlier, you said you were busy. Now you're not?”
“Your aunt wants to see you.”
I try not to make a face, but obviously fail. Ethan chuckles.
“Don't let her see that face,” he tells me.
I love my aunt. She's a strong woman who taught me my place in the world. But she's a ball buster. She's all business all the time. I like seeing her for Thanksgiving and family related things, but work related business always makes me feel like I've screwed up somewhere. She's the exact opposite of my mother, who was always all about family and business second.
“You need to come with me,” Ethan tells me. There's no arguing with him, so I don't even try.
I test the locks one last time, making sure that everything is secure. There are mattresses in this warehouse. They aren't easy to steal, but I'm not taking any chances. I know it's just a flaky sensor, but we have competition that would love to find our warehouse with open doors.
“What does she want?” I ask, following Ethan to his car. I notice that Frankie, the guy who drove me here, already bailed. He probably saw Ethan and took off before he could get in trouble for bringing me to the warehouse. I couldn't blame him. Frankie was low on the totem pole. I wasn't.
“I didn't ask,” Ethan says, getting into the drivers seat of his black sedan. The windows are tinted to almost illegal darkness, but I doubt he ever gets pulled over for it. “But she seemed like she was in a good mood.”
“Really?” I shrug, putting on my seat belt. I give Ethan a pointed look until he puts his on as well. “Maybe she just wants to give me the leftover turkey from Thanksgiving.”
“Don't bet on it.”
The tires grind on the gravel as we leave the warehouse behind. I sigh and resign myself to my fate.
Chapter 2
The FBI would classify my family's business as an organized crime syndicate. Given that I've seen the filing system my uncle prefers to use, I'd hesitate to call us organized.