“Who the hell were those people?”
I can’t breathe through the noise. Everyone is talking all at once, and my brain cannot catch up to reality imploding.
I lift a hand, but they keep shouting, tugging at my arm, patting me down for injuries, crowding me.
“Get out.”
They don’t hear me.
“Go!” My voice cracks through the chaos like a whip. “Shade crew, I need you out. Now.”
They freeze. Marco. Juno. Shayla. All of them. I’ve never used that voice on them before—the one that doesn’t leave room for argument. If I had the space, I’d feel like an asshole. But I’m barely human right now.
Shayla blinks, looks between me and the strangers at the edge of the stage. “Kade, are you sure?—?”
“I said out.”
Finally, they scatter, the shuffle of sneakers and headset cords retreating fast. Marco looks back at me once, concern staining every inch of his expression. But he, too, finally walks out. The door bangs shut, leaving the stage suddenly, horribly quiet.
It’s just me. And them.
It’s like a nightmare I can’t wake up from.
Marit, my mother, steps forward first. “Lucky?” she whispers. “I can’t… I can’t believe it. It’s… It’s really you.”
My throat tightens. I can’t move.
Uncle Henrik breaks first. “You faked your death?” His voice is raw, loud. “You let us think you were gone? You let us?—”
“Henrik,” my mother attempts to smooth things, but he barrels on.
“Do you have any idea what that did to your parents? To the whole family?” he snaps.
“Yes,” I bark, meeting his eyes with a dark glare. “Do you have any idea what it took to push me to the point where I felt like I had no other option?”
Henrik shuts up.
My father, Anders, cuts in, gravel and steel. “Why, Lucky?”
I meet his eyes, my chest rising and falling hard as I try not to fall apart. I meet those green eyes of his, the same ones he gave me. I see hurt there. But I also see the same stubborn man who couldn’t see any other way in life other than the one of twisted crime and payments that were only ever made in cash.
Why?
Because I had to. Because staying meant I’d be dead in the streets before turning twenty-one. Because I was suffocating under everything they asked me to do. Because they asked me to sell livers at the back doors of funeral homes as though it was just another day at the office.
“Because it was the only way out,” I finally say. “You didn’t listen when I said this wasn’t the life I wanted. Because when I said I wanted out, you laughed and said I knew too much to ever leave. Because when I wanted anything other than the life you lived, you accused me of abandoning the family and turned it into a guilt trip.” I stand face to face with my father, watching him study me. “The business, the debts, the blood—you were living and breathing it, Dad. Mom,” my eyes flash to her. Then to my uncles, my aunt, Mormor. “And I was next. I had to get out before it killed me.”
My father’s face barely changes, but I see it—one flicker of guilt. Tears swim in Mom’s eyes, and dammit, I hate that I’ve made her sad, even if every word I said was the truth.
“We buried you,” she whispers through her emotions. “Or, we thought we did.”
“I know,” I say simply, my voice hoarse.
Henrik shakes his head, pacing like a caged animal. “Ten years, Lucky. Ten fucking years. You couldn’t have?—”
“I couldn’t!” The words explode out of me. “You think I could just show up for Christmas dinner after what I did to walk away? You’d have dragged me right back into it!”
That stops him cold.
