I hold my spinning head in my hands and bury it in my lap and just try to breathe. Mafia. That’s the word that keeps swirling in my mind. An organized crime ring that I’m caught up in because of something my husband saw by mistake a decade ago. It can’t be real. Running and hiding and looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives—leaving my family, traumatizing my kid even more. This can’t be real life.
When we pull into the driveway of our house, Jack stays in the car to keep watch and I go inside to grab as much stuff as I can—Hallie’s clothes and favorite things, an overnight bag for myself and the important documents I keep in the safe. I have an eerie feeling like I’m being watched. I move, sobbing, from room to room, shaking, feeling like I did as a kid when I truly feared a monster in the shadows at the ready to reach out and grab me at any moment. But the house was locked and the security cameras are clear.
I pause when I step outside onto the porch with my bags. I look into the thick of trees on either side and down the narrow road in front of the house, but nobody comes out to capture us. Jack jogs up and takes a couple of the bags for me. We push all of it into the hatchback and then we start to drive.
We have a couple of hours before school is out and wehave to decide what the safest thing to do is with Hallie, so we decide to drive out to dinner away from town.
“They won’t kill us in broad daylight in front of a crowded restaurant,” I say, and Jack glances sideways at me—a look that says “if you say so.”
“They shouldn’t be looking for us there,” is all he says instead, and so we again take the long back roads into the drizzly rural outskirts, and I pray quietly to myself, still not shaking the feeling I’m being... followed. Maybe it’s paranoia, but ever since we were at the house, I feel like eyes are on me. Could someone have been lying there in wait?
I get a notification on my phone and look at it, but I don’t understand it.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“It’s Carson. He said Andi is gone. Nobody can find her. He’s home with Roxie and Drew—you know, her daughter, and Drew, Sasha’s kid, and they think something’s happened to her.”
“Who’s Sasha?” he asks, and it dawns on me I have this whole life he doesn’t know about. Even though it feels like no time has passed, a lifetime has gone by.
“You don’t think her missing could have to do with what’s happening here? Whoever is after us?”
“You told me everyone thinks she killed Tia and now Tia shows up dead. Town’s too small for all of this to be a coincidence.”
I think about everything he’s told me—all of the timeline and details—and one thing keeps coming back to mind, standing out against the rest of the shocking story.
“That guy—the one you testified against. He’s still in prison, you said.”
“Yes.”
“So this isn’t like you owe someone money. It’s personal. His family is the one after you for putting this guy away.”
“He said on the stand, in front of God and everyone, he wouldn’t rest until I was dead. Personal is an understatement. Why?” Jack says.
“The photo. He just looks familiar. Of course I don’t know him, don’t recognize his name, but...” I am scrolling through my social media, looking for a photo from last year’s annual Christmas party. Then I turn the phone around and show him. “He looks a little like a friend of mine.”
Jack glances over and his face goes white as a ghost. He screeches on the brakes and pulls over.
“Where did you... Jesus. How do you...” But he’s distracted by something in the rearview mirror. He stops midsentence and starts to drive again, but I can see now that he’s trembling.
“We’re being followed,” he says.
“What?”
“A pickup truck.”
“How do you know that? Maybe they’re just—”
But he interrupts me. “You know that man in the photo? The guy I put away— That’s his brother. Part of the family that wants us dead. Regan. My God.” He runs his hand through his hair. “That’s his fucking brother and you know him? How? God!” he scoffs.
“They moved in a few months ago. To town.”
“I don’t understand,” he says, and then suddenly a deafening pop pierces the air and I realize that it’s gunshots. This is really happening.
“Get down!” Jack yells, pushing on my head and speedingup. I clutch my chest and duck my head down, shaking so uncontrollably I can barely breathe.
Another shot is fired, and I hear the explosion of one of the tires being struck and the clanging of the car bouncing and crashing on the pavement, the smell of burning rubber in the air. Then the screech of metal on the road as our car skids out of control and is forced to stop.
Jack jumps out and tells me to run, but we’re in a rural spot, parked in a gravel pull-off with only a stretch of field and prairie grass for several yards before the cluster of trees in the distance. We’re targets. I’m too afraid to run. I freeze, but then he yells again for me to run, and he points to the other side of the street at the ravine that leads down to a creek thick with trees, but before I can even make my first step, I see a hooded figure running at us like in every nightmare I’ve ever had. It’s almost happening in slow motion. I leap out of the car, looking for Jack. I see him turn to look behind us and then within seconds the man in the hooded jacket is there. He holds out his arm, aiming right at Jack, and shoots.
