Damn, Astor looks good.

Who’s allowed to be sexy in a purple sleeping bag and the wooliest hat this south of a Mammoth? It’s not fresh wool, either. It’s pilled, and pieces of fluff stick out in every direction, creating a lopsided halo backlit by flickering, dying subway platform lights.

It’s what I focus on as words vomit out of my mouth. Desperate ones, syllables guaranteed to cut and slice and dice. Anything to get her away from this case. I’ll say whatever it takes to make her second guess her decision to open that file.

I should’ve known it would only make her sharpen her fangs.

Astor’s cheeks have given her away. They’ve bloomed pink, twin circles of passion, and she’s doing her best to cut me down at the knees.

Even though I’ve cut her down first.

I know what my words have done. Disgust. Shame. Mistake.

All meanings I’ve made her understand before. And I did it purposefully. Used them shamefully because I knew they’d wound the most. All utilized instead of giving her the truth.

Worth it. It’s all worth it, Donahue.

When she shoves me, when Astor disguises her distress with her own verbal arrows and walks away, I don’t stop her.

Many believe Astor’s cold and callous, with a complete disregard to human emotion and feelings. I don’t know why I’ve been given the gift, but I can see that lie so clearly. She wears her emotions where people forget to look. In the way she holds herself—too strong, too stable, to be real. How she places her hands, fingers too stiff and straight. And when, when you really get to her, her throat jerks with an untimed swallow.

All signs of successfully chipping away at Astor Hayes.

I use that knowledge, the well of wisdom I didn’t earn from six years ago, to my advantage, almost like a play on the field. Something was already going on with her at brunch, making it too easy to punch through her weakened glass and scatter some shards across a subway platform.

So, when she doesn’t look back at me as she boards the same train I do, ensuring she’s at least four cars away from mine, I don’t blame her.

And I don’t think I’ve convinced her of anything. But failure isn’t in my DNA, so I’m gonna keep fucking trying.

I have to pray, to whatever gods are listening—Atlas, Achilles, God—that Astor doesn’t think too much about the little boy in the pictures.

And I have to believe, with all that makes me into Ben Donahue, that the people that came after me and my family, won’t come after her if she fails in proving them not guilty.

The problem with the subway is that it’s public.

I’m assailed almost as soon as eyeballs hit my face, then go to their phones. The good ol’ days of asking for autographs are long gone, Instead, fans shove phone cameras at your nose and make sure the flash is on.

Other, more intrepid ones, throw an arm around you, catch a selfie, and don’t even say hello.

I get all three.

“Yo, Donahue, you rock!”

“Sorry about the playoffs, man. You were robbed.”

“Your fucking quarterback is a limpdick.”

“Go, Jets!”

I sneer at the last parting shot before I step off the train and into the anonymity of the TriBeCa sidewalk. I’m supposed to meet Ash at a mysterious location he won’t tell me the name of, only the address, but I’m more feeling the gym at this point. Get out some aggression.

My phone vibrates and I slide it out of my coat pocket, groaning when I see who it is.

Mom.

It’s been a few days. No doubt she’s worried about me.

I don’t call her my adoptive mom. She’s only Mom. Remembering my real mom is tough, considering she died when I was four. I wasn’t allowed to bring any pictures with me, either, so all I have are vague flashbacks of feeling warm against her chest, and the smell of gardenia.

To this day, I don’t like the smell of gardenia.

I’m told I was found crying over my mom’s blood-soaked body.

My adoptive parents, my new parents, don’t have a clue about my past, either. I mean, my fuckin’ dumpster fire history was only made known to me when I was sixteen, and a guy in a suit pulled me aside at the school playground, informing me I may be “compromised.”

Compromised. Like I knew what that meant.

Aiden made sure I grasped the seriousness of my situation, grimly stating he didn’t want to do this, but I may have to leave with him that second, and never turn back.

I thought he was full of shit. Wouldn’t you, if some Men in Black dude told you a secret universe existed where you were the victim of a violent drug cartel who was currently in the midst of figuring out who you were? I was always told I was adopted and that it was closed, meaning the birth parents didn’t want to be identified. Never did I get a whiff of the tragic circumstances that brought me to the Donahues. For all they knew, I was from an abusive family that burned me severely, forcing child services to step in. They were told my name was Ben, and that was all.

I went home that day, told I needed to pack a duffel bag, and if necessary, he would be there to pick me up in an hour. I was young, stupid, vulnerable. Scared. He showed me a badge and I figured him for real. I called the number he provided and asked for his badge number, and it matched. I raced past Mom and up the stairs, before she could see the tears in my eyes.

Luckily, it never had to happen. Whatever was blowing the lid wide open in my identity was firmly shut.

But that night, my dad peered at me strangely. Held my gaze too long at the dinner table. And when I finished Mom’s famous pot roast, he said, “I love you, son.”

Ronald Donahue doesn’t say things like that. He’s more one to express love through actions, in cheering for me at every game and talking me down when I’ve lost. Training with me, running with me, and outfitting our garage as a makeshift gym so I could do two-a-days whenever I wanted.

Even Mom gave Dad the side-eye when he said that, but he patted her hand, said “I probably had too much of a nightcap,” and left it at that.

But right then, I thought he might’ve known. About me.

I like where I am. I love being Ben Donahue. Some decades-old case about parents I should love but don’t remember can’t take that away from me. There’s no way these murderers can find me. Aiden assured that any documentation about my identifiable burn marks are long buried and sealed shut.

All I have to do, while this case goes on, is lay low.

Astor.

The name comes unbidden, and I shove it aside by answering Mom’s call. “Hey.”

“Honey! I’ve been wondering where you’ve been.”

“Sorry, Mom. I shoulda called as soon as the game was done, but I got caught up—”

“Oh, it’s all right. I’ll forgive you if you come to dinner tonight.”

“Ah, Mom…” Guilt makes me trail off. It’s been a day full of trials, and I’m looking forward to crashing tonight as soon as I finish up with Ash.

But somehow, telling that to my mom doesn’t seem like a good enough excuse to ditch her for dinner.

“It’s okay if you’re busy, honey. I miss you, though. So does Dad.”

Her voice is overly bright, and I picture her clutching the landline to her face, a fire engine red phone she refuses to send to Goodwill, a near match to the blush on her cheeks. She always smells like Dior and has hair perfectly curled, coming across to strangers as more well-to-do than a middle class, stay-at-home mom.

She’s the best, and I won’t let anyone forget it. She knew how to get rid of athlete’s foot by using apple cider vinegar, has the best brownie recipe, and stayed with me through a lot of tough, long nights, when I first moved in with them. To deny her now would be a complete disservice to how much she gave up to care for me, since before I arrived in her life, she had a career as a publicist.

Turns out, a traumatized kid is a lot of work, but she refused to send me back into foster care. Fell in love with my pale blue eyes, she said, that gazed upon her like I was a cherub who accidentally fell into the devil’s lair before she pulled me out.

“I’ll be there, Mom.”

“Really?” she can’t disguise her enthusiasm. “Oh, that’s great. I’ll tell Dad once he gets in from the garage.”

“How’s he doing, anyway?”

“Oh…you know. Covering up any pain by turning into a grouch if you try to ask him about it.”

I chuckle. “Reminds me of someone else I know.”

“Tell Locke and his family they’re welcome, too,” Mom says, immediately understanding who I’m referring to.

“I think they’re busy, but I’ll ask. Mind if I ask Ash?”

“Oh boy,” she says. “I’m not sure the supermarket has enough beef to feed him.”

Not much intimidates Callie Donahue. My giant, tattooed biker friend is no different, probably because he makes the best chocolate-hazelnut croissants in Manhattan.

“When are you going to bring a girl around here instead of your friends, who eat us out of house and home?”

“Okay, Mom. Gotta go.”

“Someone like Carter. She’s such a lovely person.”

“Oh—do I see? Uh-huh, I do. Ash is waiting on me. Love you, Mom.”

Mom gives some sort of laugh-sigh, then says, “I love you, too, honey. See you at six.”

I’m not lying. I may not see Ash, exactly, but I see his bike outside the warehouse, and that’s good enough reason for me to bail on my mom when she’s asking about my love life.