Breakfast.
Marisol stirred pancake mix, the scent of bacon filling the huge kitchen as she hummed off-key to some pop song on the radio. The twins were fighting over something trivial, theirvoices sharp but harmless. I’d never been good at this family shit, even with all the in-my-face domesticity of my sister cooking and my niece and nephew doing last-minute homework. My heart softened a little. These three humans were blood. Mine to protect. The only people who’d ever mattered enough to crack something open inside me.
The twins were half-grown and all chaos, harder to control. Case in point: Bradley had hit his teens and gone quiet, sullen, hidden behind impenetrable walls. School was good; he was at the top of his class, but I’d seen where he went when he sneaked out, going for pizza, then down to the riverbank behind the warehouses, smoking with older kids. Along with the trackers on his phone and his watch, I’d set up accounts to monitor his gaming remotely. Slouched in his chair, looking pissed at life, snarling at his sister and a textbook, he was the picture of teenage rebellion.
“You need to stop going out after dark,” I said to him, keeping it simple and to the point.
“Huh?” Marisol glanced at me, but I pointed at Bradley.
“Not you. Him.”
“Himhas a name,” Bradley muttered.
“Bradley!” Marisol warned him.
“What, Mom! I don’t need his stay-home-forever survivalist crap any more than I need this1984book report shit!” Bradley tossed the book on the table, then shoved his chair back so hard it scraped across the tile, that teenage scowl of his darkening into something almost venomous.
“Sit down, Bradley,” I warned him.
He half rose, shoulders tensing, dark eyes flashing as if he was daring me to push harder. It turned into a battle of wills—him glaring, me not blinking. For a heartbeat, I thought he’d bolt anyway, but then the fire dimmed. His jaw clenched, and he sat back down hard, muttering something I pretended not tohear. I sat in silence; I’d learned that control came best when I didn’t raise my voice. As he picked up the discarded book, then mumbled and cursed, my silent stillness reminded him who held the power. Controlling the situation without breaking always worked eventually; the quiet got under his skin until he cracked first.
“I’m old enough not to have a curfew,” he spat.
“You’re old enough to get killed.”
Marisol inhaled, but didn’t stop me from what I was doing. She knew more than Bradley. Sheknewwhat a twisted mess the world was. Bradley, though, had been spared that. He’d had a peaceful childhood—one I’d made damn sure of. He might’ve been conceived in hell, but what he had now was fucking heaven compared to where his mom and I had come from.
“You can’t stop me from meeting friends,” Bradley snapped, voice rising, full of teenage rage and the kind of defiance that begged for a fight.
“You mean Darren Lewes, twenty-one and permanently stoned; Mikey Harlan, nineteen, who thinks stealing from trucks makes him a legend; and Troy Beckett, twenty, the genius who bragged that his brother’s doing time in Corcoran for dealing?”
Bradley’s mouth fell open. “Are you watching me?”
I leaned forward in my chair. “Always.”
“Psycho!”
I raised an eyebrow, and he winced. If he thought being called that was going to mess with me, he was wrong. I may not have been born a psychopath like Novak, but life had carved me into someone who didn’t flinch at blood, didn’t blink at violence, and sure as hell wasn’t moved by a fourteen-year-old throwing insults.
I sighed. “You think hanging with them makes you older, smarter? It just makes you next in line. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“They’re my friends!”
“No. They’re not. Darren’s got priors for assault and small-time drug running, Mikey’s already on probation for boosting cars, and Troy’s brother isn’t the only dealer in that family. They’ve all got records, Bradley. Half their family runs cash for the Angels’ network downtown, and the rest move stolen hardware out of East LA. You sit with them, you’re in it—doesn’t matter if you light up or just stand there. You’re in it. That’s how this shit works.”
“You can’t choose my friends! You can’t stop me! You’re not my dad!” he yelled.
I saw Marisol flinch. I looked at my nephew then—reallylooked. The hoodie pulled up over his head, sleeves frayed, the smell of smoke clinging to it even this early in the day. His jeans were torn, his shoes scuffed, and his hair hung in his face, dyed too dark. Every bit of him screamed rebellion, as though he was turning himself from a good kid into someone people should cross the street to avoid.
“Then I’ll stopthem,” I said evenly.
“What?”
“Take them out, one by one, until you learn to stay at home.”
His eyes snapped up, anger flashing. “You’re sick!”
“Yep.” I owned that shit. Then I leaned in, calm, voice soft but cold. “I know exactly what I am. And that’s what keeps you all in this house, safe and creating a future, instead of being in the ground. Remember that.”
