"It smells good in here," Dad says.
"We've been baking." I cut him a slice and hand it over on a paper towel.
"Oh, hell yeah." He takes a huge bite, then swallows hard. His expression shifts, his voice going flat and serious. "Raul."
"Yeah?"
"We have another job offer." The room goes still. "But it's different from what we normally do."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"It would be to… take care of someone." He cracks his knuckles against the counter.
My eyebrows lift. "Like… gone?"
"Yeah," he says, lowering his voice to almost nothing. "And it's an amount we can't refuse."
"How much?" Diego asks, but even he sounds uneasy.
"Enough." Dad's face hardens. "But he's young, and I need you to do it."
His eyes lock on mine.
"Me?"
"You." He doesn't blink. Doesn't soften. "We can talk details later, but it has to be done before the weekend is over."
The air thickens around us.
It's Thursday. That leaves us only a few days to decide how bad this is going to get.
Dad grabs another slice of cake with his bare hand and takes a huge bite like he hasn't just dropped a blade in the middle of our kitchen.
"I gotta run. Love you boys."
He says it through a mouthful of cake, then walks out the front door like he hasn't just turned the whole room cold.
Diego and I stare at each other in silence.
And just like that, the weight of the world is back on our shoulders.
The next two days are a blur.
Diego offers to help. Dad offers to split the money with him. It'll be about $150,000 each when all is said and done. None of us has ever seen that kind of money before. Not even close.
The three of us sit around the trailer's tiny table, mapping out every possible way this could go. What could go wrong. What could go right. Every scenario, every exit plan, every contingency, until it feels like we're planning a war instead of a murder.
Dad gives me a mix of pills. And a gun, in case they don't work.
I don't like hurting people. I never have. The only time I can bring myself to do it is if someone threatens the people I love. I don't even know this man. I don't know his name. I don't know what he's done. I don't know why someone wants him gone.
I just know that they're willing to pay enough to make my father look at me like I'm finally worth something.
Diego and I pull up to the house with the lights off.
We sit in the dark and watch.
Wait.
