What in the name of all things holy had Dad gotten me into this time?

I stared at the apartment complex that sprawled along the street, cresting the top of a hill that at this moment looked like Mount Everest.

A Bay Area native, I was no virgin to the hills of San Francisco, but after working twenty hours straight, quitting two of my four jobs—then packing up all my family’s worldly belongings and lugging them via BART train, then the bus, then walking, then another bus, then tons and tons of walking—I’d had enough.

I didn’t know whether to thank my father or kill him for involving me in his deal. It should be nice to think that Dad had done something to help me, for the first time ever. But nothing about this deal felt moderately nice.

I adjusted my monstrous backpack. Behind it hung three garbage bags full of stuff, and the combined weight tugged on my shoulders. Checking to make sure the five small boxes of heavier items, including my cherished cast-iron pan, were secure on the barely functioning luggage cart, I grabbed the handle of my roller suitcase. Attached to the suitcase with duct tape was a second suitcase with broken wheels.

Everything gathered, I started up the hill—the final climb to my new digs that had so better be worth it.

Not like I had many choices. Even with my four jobs, without Dad’s long-term disability checks, I could barely afford the roach-infested place our family had shared in the East Bay. In contrast, this deal sounded way too good to be true, especially given how I’d landed my lease at Shady Oaks. Not that I’d seen an actual lease.

Not having paperwork wasn’t the only thing that seemed sketchy. Everything about this situation was sketch. I mean, the apartment complex even had the word “shady” in its name, and I was pretty sure I’d be walking into a veritable lion’s den, with me the only non-criminal tenant.

I’d keep to myself, wouldn’t talk to anyone.

With this deal, Dad would be protected in jail, Crystal had her tuition paid, and I got a new place to live, plus a great job. Way too good to be true. It was time for the other shoe to drop, and as I reached the gate, I got the distinct feeling a giant-sized boot was about to land on my head.

With zero breeze and the fog burned off, the early summer sun baked my skin, frying me in my own sweat as I stared at the arched, gated entrance to the Shady Oaks complex.

The keys for apartment 311 had mysteriously appeared in my staff room locker at Flo’s, a greasy-spoon diner in Oakland, when I’d worked my final shift early that morning.

The larger of the two keys opened the iron gate, an ornate monstrosity with a confusion of details—Spanish colonial meets art deco?—and I tugged my stuff through a long arched walkway into a courtyard.

The courtyard had some sad-looking palm trees, badly in need of pruning, and a few beautifully bright bougainvillea climbing up wrought iron to the second and third floors. In the center of the courtyard lay the corpse of what may once have been a very nice pool. The chipped and broken tiles inside the empty pool were teal, aqua, and peacock blue, but when I got closer I saw the bottom contained an indeterminate amount of water, green and murky enough to support its own ecosystem.

Letting go of the luggage cart’s handle, I shaded my eyes from the sun and searched for my new place. And hopefully an elevator. I seriously doubted such a thing would exist, but why not fantasize and embellish my already too-good-to-be-true situation.

Each apartment entrance was arched, with colored tiles framing carved oak doors sporting huge pewter knockers and little cages over what looked like tiny windows. This place must have been gorgeous in its heyday. Like a hundred years ago. It had an old Hollywood vibe, and I’d had no idea places like this existed in Northern California, never mind South San Francisco.

It didn’t take long to figure out that the units on the ground floor all started with a one—and it didn’t take a genius to realize that my hopes for an elevator had been ridiculous. I headed toward the open staircase at one of the back corners of the rectangular courtyard.

Leaving behind my barely-holding-together luggage cart, I dragged the two suitcases up to the first landing and shrugged out of the weighted-down backpack. I walked down the steps for the boxes, feeling weightless, like I had wings attached to my shoulder blades.

Carrying up the boxes reminded me I didn’t.

When I got all five boxes onto the landing, I considered my next move. I hadn’t seen anyone, but I had the distinct feeling I was being watched.

Thugs and criminals—that’s who lived in Shady Oaks. And although my family’s collective possessions weren’t valuable, they were to me, and after carting them so far, I didn’t want to risk their being stolen.

I carried two boxes to the second floor, leaving them in sight as I returned for the other three, carrying them all together, even though it meant I couldn’t see over the top.

Sensing I was close, I peered around the side of the boxes, then pushed them forward onto the second floor hallway, next to—

My first two boxes were gone.

“What the hell?” After scanning the open second-floor hallway, I raced up the stairs to the third floor and spotted the back of the most massive man I’d ever seen.

He looked back over his shoulder. “You’re moving into 311, right?”

“Put down my shit!”

“Why are you moving boxes of shit?”

“Very funny. Put my stuff down, asshole.” In the shadows, the man’s silhouette looked impossibly large, inhuman, as he set down my boxes.

“Just trying to help.”

“Did I ask for help?”

He raised his hands in surrender.

“Just don’t touch my stuff, okay?” I was being stubborn. And rude. I knew that. But Shady Oaks had a reputation, and even if this guy wasn’t out to rob me, I was tired and cranky, plus I didn’t like the idea of being in anyone’s debt. Anyone else’s.

“Got something illegal in here?” He tapped his big boot on the lower box.

“Of course not.” I turned from him and returned to the stairs, racing down to make sure no one had messed with the rest of my things.

I carried all I could at once, taking the stairs to the third floor in stages. On the landing between the second and third floors, I strapped on the weighted backpack, then pulled both suitcases behind me, straining as they thumped against each stair.

When I got to the top, the huge dude was hulking near my door, a half grin on his face as I staggered under the weight of my belongings. Even if he planned to kill me, I refused to be intimidated.

“Diamonds?”

“What?” I dug into the front pocket of my denim shorts to find my key, not at all happy that this guy was lurking.

“Gold bars?

“What are you talking about?”

“Since you wouldn’t let me touch them, must be something valuable in those boxes. A hoard of cash from your last bank job? Bricks of heroin?”

“None of your business.” I leaned the suitcases against the wall and shrugged off the backpack, which thumped to the broken-tiled hallway behind me. I took a deep breath and glared at him, making it clear that there was no chance I was opening my apartment door until he left me alone.

“If you don’t mind?” I said.

“Mind what?”

I lifted my chin to prove Jade Cuoco was not easily intimidated. “I’ve got mace. Don’t make me use it.” I didn’t have mace, or a weapon of any kind, unless you counted my cast-iron frying pan, currently buried in a box, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Wow.” He stepped back, lifting his hands. “Just trying to be friendly.”

“What makes you think I’d befriend a gorilla?”

His jaw tightened.

Good. I’d found the right button to push. Even though he was a few feet away, I felt boxed in.

He was so big—like his body might not fit through the door once it was opened—but under his jeans and black T-shirt, I couldn’t detect an ounce of fat. The man was a wall of muscle, and that wall had planted itself so close to me I was finding it hard to breathe.

“Get the fuck away from my door.”

“Wow.” He shook his head. “Just wow.”

“Look,” I said. “I’m really tired. Your intimidation thing might work on most people, but my security deposit and rent are paid in full”—so I’d been told—“and you can’t extort me into paying more. Whatever your game is, give it up. And stop lurking!”

“Lurking?” He shook his head. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? I live here.” He pointed to the door not three feet from my own. “Standing in the hall outside my apartment is not lurking. I have as much of a right to be here as you.”

He had a point, but that didn’t make me less uncomfortable.

I squared my stance. “For all I know, the second I open my door you’ll force your way in.”

He shifted back like I’d punched him and raised his palms toward me. “Whoa.”

“Muscled meatheads like you—”

“Listen”—he squared his feet on the Spanish tiles—“you don’t know me. At all. Just because I’m big doesn’t mean I hurt women. I’d never.” He looked a bit sick.

I took a deep breath. He was right. Kind of. I’d made assumptions. “Okay, okay.” I shook my head, beyond tired and cranky. “But you’ve got to admit—I’m the loser in the power dynamic here, I mean the top of my head barely comes to your armpit and…”

“I don’t like being accused—” He stopped mid-sentence and looked down as he turned away from me, clearly admitting defeat.

That’s right, you gorilla. You might be big and I might be small, but no one messes with Jade Cuoco.

“Hey, Nick!” An attractive woman, her disproportionately huge boobs strapped in like she was coming back from a run, arrived at the top of the stairs. “Thanks again for last night.”

“My pleasure, Melodie.”

With that, the man pushed open his door and slammed it behind him, leaving me in the hall, feeling like shit.

My phone rang. Epic bad timing. I was second from the front in a very long line at the corner grocery store I’d found three blocks from Shady Oaks. Planning to let it ring through, I glanced down to check the caller. Cal Dep of C&R. Dad.

I stepped out of line, answered, then accepted the reversed charges I couldn’t afford.

“Hey, Frank,” I said once we were connected. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t call to say hello to my daughter? Why does something need to be wrong?”

Because I know you, I thought. Because I’ve been taking care of you for years.

He’d done the best he could, but between Frank’s addictions, bouts of depression, and general inability to hold down a job, I’d pretty much been parent to both my younger sister Crystal and our dad since Mom had vanished, two weeks after my seventh birthday—fifteen years ago next November. At the time, Crystal had barely turned four.

“Run out of cash in your commissary account?” Yawning, I set my basket of groceries on the floor and stretched. I’d never needed sleep so badly.

“Now that you mention it,” Frank said. “I could use a top up.”

“As soon as I get paid.”

“Oh.” His disappointment was clear. “When’s that going to be?”

“Not sure. When do I get the details of my new job?” The promised job had better come through since I’d quit all but one of my old jobs. Not that I’d ever had trouble finding work. Helps when you’re willing to do almost anything.

“You gotta to talk to the person who arranged the deal,” Dad said.

“And who’s that? How do I get in touch with him?”

“He’ll contact you?”

“You don’t sound sure.”

“Listen, if you aren’t grateful, if you don’t want your piece of my deal…” He sighed, heavily. “I went to jail for you girls, to keep you safe, but—”

“Frank. Come on.” He’d gone to jail for committing a crime.

Frank was doing more time than his involvement deserved, and yes, the deal he’d struck with some crime boss in exchange for his silence did include some benefits for my sister and me, but Frank was no martyr. At least, no martyred saint. He’d committed his fair share of crimes over the years, enough to deserve tons of jail time, and that only counted the crimes I knew about.

In jail, at least Frank was safe. Protection was part of his deal, too.

“Can you at least tell me who’s going to be contacting me?” I asked.

“Someone at Shady Oaks. Name’s Nick.”

My breath caught. Unless I’d heard wrong, Nick was the name of my hulk-sized neighbor. That’s what the big-boobed Asian-American woman had called him when I’d moved in.

“What do you know about this Nick guy?” I asked Frank. “What does he look like?”

“Never seen him. Alls I know—people are scared shitless of Nick, so be careful.”

“Shit.”

“Don’t sweat it, honey. Just make nice. Do whatever it takes to stay on Nick’s good side. From what I’ve heard, this is someone you do not want to cross.”

“Make nice?” I shook my head. “Are you telling me I should fuck this guy, Dad?”

“No, ah, I…” It took a lot to fluster Frank, but I’d done it.

“Sorry, Dad, but when you say ‘make nice’…”

“Just do whatever he asks, okay? Don’t screw this up, Jade. If you do, you’re out on your ass, plus you’ll be screwing me and your sister, too.”

The call disconnected and I nearly dropped my phone.

I’d already pissed off this Nick guy. I’d already pissed off the man responsible for the roof over my head, my sister’s ability to go to college, and my dad’s safety in prison.