It’s beena week since I watched Phoenix die, and somehow, I’m more exhausted now than I was that night.
Apparently, surviving trauma isn’t restful when your entire extended family decides to move temporarily into your city like they’re on a Viking holiday.
My mother, father, Mormor, both uncles, Aunt Vivi—every last one of them—is staying in the most expensive suite the casino my theater is in offers. It’s as big as my penthouse. There are five bedrooms in the place. There’s a private elevator to it. There’s an infinity hot tub that looks like it could be the shooting location for a rap music video. It catches every insane neon light in the city.
And of course, their weeklong stay is on my bill. My theater, the same casino, in my family’s mind, it’s free, right?
No, it is fucking not.
But we’re working on healing bonds. So, I don’t say anything. I just pay the insane bill and pray they don’t break anything during their stay.
They’ve been to my show. Twice. And this time they didn’t ruin it. Every one of them has gotten a tarot reading from Willow, all of them scarily accurate. We’ve walked the Strip like tourists together.
And we all watched the news report together. Phoenix Marrow—online personality and wellness guru—has been reported missing. Speculation runs in every direction. He is just running an ultra-secret retreat in the desert. He got high on too much acid and is passed out somewhere. He ascended. Others suspect something sinister might have happened.
They’re right.
It was earned, one thousand percent. But they’re right.
Still, the authorities are looking for him, and the public is asked to contact the police with any information.
No information is going to come forward. Because everyone who knows the truth is a crazy fucking maniac whose lips will be sealed forever.
Now we’re all gathered around my penthouse dining table—me, Willow, and the Torvik circus—finishing dinner. There are candles. Dozens of empty dishes. Empty wine bottles. Mormor’stalking with her hands so much that she nearly knocks over Willow’s glass every other sentence.
My father looks at Willow like she’s a godsend who dragged his idiot son out of exile. “I have to say, kid,” he tells me, stabbing at his pasta, “I don’t know how you conjured this woman up. It’s like Odin designed her just for you. She’s smarter, calmer, and probably hides bodies better than you ever did.”
Willow just smirks. “Aww, thank you, Anders.”
My mom laughs, the cackling kind. “You fake your death, disappear for ten years, and somehow bring home a woman who scares even your uncles. I don’t know whether to be proud or call a priestess.”
Uncle Henrik raises his glass. “We’ll settle for proud. It’s cheaper.”
Laughter ripples around the table. Even Willow smiles, her fingers brushing mine under the table, grounding me in the chaos.
They love her. And she, like the fucking miracle that she is, seems to love them back.
Ten years ago, I felt like I had no choice but to do something dramatic to escape them. The organ selling. The crime clean-up. The work with mob bosses. The break-ins. The endless string of illegal shit. When I said I wanted out, that wasn’t an option. So, I did something dramatic.
Ten years ago, these people would have knocked the kneecaps out of someone who did what I did. And that would just be the starting point.
I had to do what I did at the time.
But now? I don’t know. Maybe they’re just grateful I’m not really dead. Maybe they’ve changed. Maybe it’s that they can see I’ve made something of myself, and it had nothing to do with crime, which is all they’ve ever known.
But it’s different now.
And I’ll take it.
A notification on my phone goes off. “Your Uber’s will be here in ten minutes. We’ve got to get you guys downstairs.”
Dad sets down his napkin and folds his arms on the table, staring at me with fixed eyes. “We get it, Lucky. You have an amazing life here. You’ve made something incredible for yourself. I’m sorry we didn’t get it when you said you wanted out.”
Weight drops into the room instantly at his words. Everyone is silent, listening as Anders Torvik reconciles with his thought-to-be-dead only son.
My heart hammers in anticipation.
“As much as I want to drag you back to Brooklyn, make you part of the family again, I can see what a good thing you have here,” he says. He claps his hand on my shoulder, staring right into my eyes. “So, you keep living your life here, kid. You keep being Saint Shade. You keep worshiping this pretty little justice goddess. But I want contact, okay? No going dark on us. No changing your number or moving.”
