"Lower your weapons," Dad said quietly.
I didn't move. Neither did my brothers.
"Byron," Atlas said carefully over the comms. "We've got eight down. Cops are two minutes out."
"Lower them," Dad repeated.
Slowly, we complied.
Victoria nodded to her men, and they lowered their weapons as well.
"You look good, Byron," she said, her voice like gravel and smoke. "Much better than you deserve."
Dad just stared at her.
"I thought you were in Portugal," he said finally.
She cackled—a sharp, ugly sound. Her wrinkled face scrunched, bad plastic surgery pulling her skin too tight in all the wrong places.
"That was three husbands ago," she said. "Retirement got boring. Especially when I found out you were still alive."
"This was all a misunderstanding," Dad said. "We had a deal."
Victoria leaned forward, cigarette ash falling onto the pristine marble floor.
"Nothing is ever over," she said. Her eyes burned with disdain. "You owe me a pound of flesh, Byron. And I always collect."
"What happened was a long time ago," Dad said.
"It feels like yesterday," she spat. "Bygones will never be bygones. So, like you did to me, I'll cut and burn each and every one of your hopes and dreams."
"Leave it alone."
"Why should I?" she hissed. "You took everything from me. My operation. My reputation. My life. Now I'm taking yours. Piece by piece. Starting with your sons. Their women. Everyone you've dared to care about."
"You don't have to do this."
"I want to," she said simply.
The sound of sirens filled the air, growing closer.
Victoria tapped ash onto the floor and stood. She was shorter than I expected—bent with age, dressed in expensive clothes that hung wrong on her frame. Bad plastic surgery and worse makeup. She looked like Cruella de Vil on crack and eighty-five years old.
She felt like bitterness in human form.
"I'm leaving now," she said. "And as soon as I walk out that door, the truce is over."
"That's impossible," Dad said.
"Oh?" She smiled, showing yellowed teeth. "Tell that to the FBI who will be here any minute. But as long as we all leave, the whole thing will be swept under the rug."
"And the dead guys?" Dad asked, gesturing to the bodies scattered through the house.
She waved the question away. "Training exercise. I'll have it taken care of. Just lock the door on your way out."
They stood there for a long moment, sirens getting closer, the kitchen thick with unspoken threats.
Finally, Dad nodded begrudgingly and motioned toward the door.
