Prologue
Max
Lila’s crying. Sobbing as that man ties a gag around her mouth. I watch the material cut into my baby sister’s pale cheeks and I can’t do a damn thing. My hands are bound and I’m tied to the dining room chair. Pops is out cold, secured by rope to the chair at the head of the table. Mother is in the chair next to him, bound and gagged as well. Somehow, these four men tripped the security system, sneaking in without the slightest of sounds. I woke to a gun against my temple and a gloved hand over my mouth.
“Wake him up,” one of the men says.
Guy number two walks to my father, smacking him hard across the face. Pops startles, his eyes cracking wide with fear. His gaze drifts around the room as he takes in the sight of his captured family. Tears well in his eyes. Never have I seen my father cry. Never. “Ah, look, Frank,” the guys says, “he’s gonna cry like a little bitch.”
“Now, what a predicament we’ve fallen into here, huh, Jacob?” The head guy, Frank, talks to my father with such hatred thick in his voice. “I’m sure you know why I’m here. An eye for an eye and all.”
My father tries to speak around the gag, but all that comes out is a muffled noise.
“Oh, don’t worry, Jacob. I’m not going to hurt your precious children. You know I have a soft spot for them. I am a father myself, after all.”
He turns to face me and smiles, deep wrinkles settling around his eyes. His golden eyes. “Untie the boy,” he orders one of his men.
My heart goes into a frenzy as I watch the massive bald man stalk over to me. “Don’t try no funny shit, boy,” he says, spitting a wad of chewing tobacco on the floor. He quickly undoes the rope and hauls me up by both wrists. I may be a well-built sixteen-year-old, but I look like a fucking drowned rat next to this steroid-pumped beast. I don’t stand a chance in hell. The guy shoves me in the back and I stumble, stopping in front of Frank Donovan.
His grin widens, his white teeth gleaming under the dim lights. He pulls a gun from the waistband of his jeans and places the barrel against my temple. The cold metal sears into my skin, and my eyes slam shut from fear. Death is something I’ve yet to think about, but suddenly, the finality of it has become far too real. I can hear the stifled sobs of both my mother and sister. My dad is grunting against his gag.
“Now, boy. I won’t shoot you if you do as I say.” Frank hands me a pistol. I take it in my hand, the weight of it heavier than it should be. “You are going to choose one of your parents and you are going to shoot them, because I don’t get my fucking hands dirty, understand?”
I shake my head vehemently from side to side. “No. Please. I—I can’t. I can’t do—”
“You don’t, I’ll have Ralph there shoot them both. Your choice. You murder one, or by an act of defiance, you murder them both.”
My heart sits in my throat, one beat indistinguishable from the next. And now this gun feels like a lead weight in my sweat-slicked palms. My gaze bounces from my mother to my father. She closes her eyes, and part of me thinks she’s praying even though we aren’t religious. My pops stares me down, trying to talk with his eyes. I lock eyes with him and he nods.
“Chose one, son,” Frank whispers in my ear, his heated breath blowing over my neck.
Lila’s muffled cries are so loud. I’m terrified she’ll suffocate with that gag on. “Please,” I say. “Take the gag off her.”
Frank laughs and nods for one of his guys to do it. The second the material slips away from her face she screams. “Why would you do this? Max. Don’t do it. Don’t!”
Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath.
“Do it, or I will have all of you killed.” Frank laughs again. My sister cries. “And you”—I open my eyes to see him pointing at Lila—“shut your mouth.”
She doesn’t listen, and Ralph crosses the room, pistol-whipping her. Her head rolls to the side. Blood trickles down her temples.
“She’s fine. She’ll just learn to keep quiet,” Frank says. “Now. I’ll give you to the count of ten to choose one.” He takes me by the shoulders, his gun still pressed against my head, and pushes me across the room so that I am standing in front of them both. “Choose.”
How do you choose whose life to take? I’m tempted to turn this gun around and blow my own goddamn brains out.
“Remember, if you don’t, you all die. Four deaths as opposed to one. Think of those statistics.”
My mouth has gone dry, the room spins. My father stares me down, his eyes widening in a plea to take his life.
“One…two…three…” Frank counts down.
Mere seconds to come to grips with what the fuck is going on.
“Six…seven…”
I raise the gun, watching it shake in my unsteady hands.
“Boy, my patience is very thin. Eight…nine…”
