I clench my jaw harder, waiting.
“Now one last thing before the rest of the payment is made.”
I lean back in the chair, forcing my voice to stay level even though my pulse is hammering knowing that my father is dead. “What would that be?”
“Bring me Koa.”
The line goes dead.
The silence after Gilbert’s voice cuts out feels heavier than the gun still sitting on the table. More dangerous. More final.
I stare at the black screen for a long beat, my reflection distorted in the glass. Then something in me snaps. I grab the glass of water I’d been holding and hurl it at the far wall. It explodes on impact, shards scattering across the floor, water dripping down the cracked paint like veins bleeding through skin.
My reflection fractures in the broken pieces, and I look like a stranger—someone I don’t recognize, someone I never wanted to become.
Koa wasn’t part of the deal.
But even as I think it, I know it doesn’t matter. Deals shift, terms change, and the people who think they’re players end up being pawns.
I rub a hand over my face, then slide into the chair, breathing hard through my nose. My knuckles are still raw from the warehouse fight, dried blood caught in the creases of my skin.
The memory of Koa hits before I can stop it—I’m sixteen. Koa’s fourteen, standing in the kitchen with his shoulders too straight, too rigid. He’s scared. I can see it in the way his hands clench at his sides, but he’s too proud to flinch.
Vincent’s voice cuts through the house, hoarse from whiskey and cigarettes. “You call me ‘sir,’ you little shit.”
The snap of a belt cuts through the air. Once. Twice. Three times. Each crack makes me flinch from where I’m watching through the doorway, but Koa doesn’t move. Doesn’t make a sound.
His mother screamed from another room—”Vincent, please, he’s just a boy!”—but her voice is muffled, distant, useless against the rage my father carries like a second skin.
“No, he’s a fucking man! Aren’t you, Koa!”
And Koa just stared at him. Silent. Eyes burning with something that looks like hate mixed with resignation. Refusing to cry, refusing to break, refusing to give Vincent the satisfaction.
Vincent attacked Koa’s mom because she wouldn’t stop interfering, but Koa stopped him. That’s the thing about Koa, he protects the ones he loves. He would go to any length to protect her.
My mom left me with the idiot sperm-donor and took off when I was a kid way before Koa and his mom came into the picture. I was his punching bag then, so when Koa came, it felt like fucked-up relief.
When it was time for me to leave for college, I kept my distance. I heard Koa was getting into deep shit, so I disconnected myself from him and Vincent. I made my own connections, which landed me in the Reapers only recently. I’ve had to prove myself to them for some time before being accepted. It was the best decision I could have made.
Now I’m staring at the shattered glass on the floor. My hands are shaking—from anger or guilt or some toxic combination of both.
I pick up my phone, scrolling through my contacts until I hit a name I haven’t ever used. Maddox.Oxy. My fingers hover over the keyboard for a second before I type,Meet me. No questions.
Then I sit back, running both hands through my hair. I can hear Gilbert’s voice echoing in my head, playing on repeat like a curse.
“Bring me Koa.”
I know what that means. Not “bring” as in capture, as in negotiate. Bring as in deliver. As in bury.
Gilbert wants another corpse to complete the set. Father, son. Stepson. I’m the real son. That’s why he’s telling me to bring Koa in. Gilbert wants the blood debt paid in full.
And Koa? Koa’s just the collateral damage for being so near and dear to Vincent.
I pour a drink and down it fast. The burn does nothing to settle my nerves, doesn’t wash away the taste of betrayal coating my throat.
The door swings open without warning. Shit, how long have I been sitting here?
Oxy steps in, eyes sharp and assessing, taking in the broken glass and the tension radiating off me in waves. “Isn’t this a fucking safehouse I shouldn’t know about?”
