“What did you say?” I asked, staring at my husband of five years. He’d awakened me when he arrived home early in the morning, apprehensive and nervous to tell me his news.

As I worked to still the shaking of my hands, I realized his anxiety was contagious.

“Becky, I don’t know how to say it...other than to say it. He made me an offer. I’m not sure there’s an option B.”

I stood, walking warily away from the kitchen table where I’d been sitting, and moved to the stove. Lifting the teakettle, I gave it a shake, confirming its lack of contents. As I moved, Neal continued staring my direction, waiting for an answer. I didn’t have an answer. I was having difficulty comprehending his statement.

Did a statement even need an answer?

My husband’s head was down in defeat as he leaned against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest. Adding water to the teakettle, I placed it back on the stove. Twisting the knob, I waited for the pilot light to ignite the burner. First a hiss and then with a burst of blue flame it came to life. I adjusted the heat.

“Are you going to say anything?” Neal asked.

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Becky.”

Sitting back down on the hard wooden chair, I shook my head. “I-I don’t know what to say.” I looked up at him as he eyed me from under his furrowed brow. “May I ask what happened or how it happened?”

“You know that I can’t answer that.”

“Is this because of your brother?”

Neal formed his lips in a straight line as he shrugged his shoulder. “Isn’t everything?”

“Why us?”

Neal shrugged. “He knows he can trust me—us. I owe him. He knows that I’ll never get out from under the debt. If we do this, we’ll be free.”

“Free? How are we free if he’s still watching us?” Neal didn’t answer. With my frustration growing, I asked, “Whose baby is it?”

“We’re not supposed to know.”

“How are we getting it? Does he expect us to kidnap this kid?”

“No, he’s got it all arranged. It’s our chance for a family.”

My stomach twisted with equal parts terror and anticipation as my emotions began to build. “Damn it. This isn’t fair. You know I’ve been trying to get pregnant for years.”

Neal came forward, kneeling near my chair and placing his hand on my robe-covered knee. “I know that, Becks. Of course, I know. I’ve been the one to watch helplessly while you cry every time your period starts. This is our answer. Think of this as a gift.”

My neck straightened. “Allister Sparrow isn’t God. Babies come from God, not a man like him.”

Neal’s lips attempted a smile. “Aren’t you the one who says God works in mysterious ways?”

“What if Mr. Sparrow changes his mind? What if we agree to all the terms that he’s laid out, and then one day he comes and snatches the baby away?”

“No. We won’t let him.”

My stomach twisted more. “Who’s going to stop him?”

“It’s a chance at a whole new life for us,” Neal said again. “Think of it. You, me, a kid...he said it’s a little girl.” My husband stood and lifted my hands. “The pressure we’ve been under and the debt, it’ll be gone—vanished with this one assignment.” He gestured around our simple nine-hundred-square-foot flat. “This offer comes with a whole new identity—for both of us. I’m going to be able to do what I’ve always wanted. Have a legitimate job. He offered Boeing.” My husband’s face grew brighter. “And you’ll be able to do what you wanted, be a mom. Think about it. We’ll have a house in a decent neighborhood with a yard and other kids living nearby. We’ll raise her like she’s our own.”

“There’s a catch,” I said. “There’s always a catch with Mr. Sparrow.”

Neal and I should know. From the time Neal was young, his mother’s drug problem was supported by turning tricks. Her pimp was in Sparrow’s outfit. Obviously, my husband didn’t have the best childhood. That didn’t mean his mother didn’t try her best with Neal. Her options were limited. To hear him tell the story, she did what she could to help him avoid her path, including bragging about his various abilities to her pimp.

Though I didn’t know the details, according to Neal, some kids had it worse. In order to avoid darker options, as soon as Neal had been old enough, he’d gone to work for his mom’s pimp and became part of Sparrow’s outfit.

He started running drugs and sometimes numbers. His responsibilities increased until the day his mother injected more than her fragile body could handle. Out of the blue, his grandparents reemerged, vowing that now that she was gone, they’d get him out.

Moving him to Indiana, they paid for his college where he studied data analytics. Neal took what he’d learned running numbers and counting cash and turned it into a valuable education.

There was a kid a few years younger than Neal, who he’d helped through the years. Though they weren’t blood relatives, they called themselves brothers. Joey’s mom had the same profession as Neal’s mother. Her fight with drugs ended earlier.

Neal did all he could to help Joey while they were young, working to keep him in the lighter side of their dark world. Neal hadn’t told me the particulars, but according to my husband, running drugs, selling to kids, or helping with the backroom gambling was the better option. Others were much worse. The problem was that as Joey grew older, he did more than work the gambling. He lived it, losing money as soon as he earned it, and finally, skimming.

When Neal and I met at Purdue University, I had no idea of his past. We married our senior year. It was upon graduation that he learned the hard truth. He could move beyond doing grunt work for Allister Sparrow, but leaving the outfit was impossible.

Neal’s affiliation preceded him, making employment away from Chicago impossible. The only way to be hired in or around Chicago was to go through Sparrow. The way Sparrow saw it was that Neal had gotten his start in the Sparrow outfit. Neal was given the choice of jobs as long as they benefited Sparrow Enterprises.

My husband’s dream had been aerospace not real estate.

When we returned to Chicago after college and marriage, Sparrow had Neal working both sides of the legal fence. The job Allister offered Neal at Sparrow Enterprises was simply a legal hook to keep him in the illegal Sparrow outfit forever.

“I don’t know if there’s a catch,” Neal said. “Mr. Sparrow means business with this. The baby is due soon. We have to become new people, even physically. He has some people who can do some of that stuff. I don’t know what it includes, nose jobs and cheek bones...

I scrunched my lips. “Surgery? Why?”

“He wants us hiding in plain sight.”

“We could move away from Chicago.”

“Becks, he has this all worked out to the second.”

The teakettle on the stove began to whistle, like the shrill alarm of Allister Sparrow’s timer. Our time was up, and we needed to make a decision.

Standing again, I removed the kettle from the burner, turned off the flame, and opened the flimsy cupboard above, removing two mugs. My steps stalled as the window above the sink caught my attention. Beyond the dingy glass panes was the world in which we lived, roof tops with chimneys and brick walls. The sky was gray, filled with early March snow-laced clouds. I reached for the counter as the dishes in the sink rattled, and the 6:15 train sped by on the nearby tracks.

“What if we say no?”

“I can’t be sure. Look what happened to Joey.”

The year after we graduated college, Joey’s body—or what was left of it—was found floating in a fifty-five-gallon drum of acid behind an abandoned warehouse in South Chicago. Since that time, Neal’s been held responsible for the money Joey skimmed. With the accumulating interest—points—it’s been a debt that he could never repay.

“If we say yes?” I asked.

“I call him tonight. They’ll come and get us.” He gestured around the room. “We leave this all behind. Mr. Sparrow said that we could be having surgery tonight or tomorrow. Next will be our identities: new names, a house, a job—a life out of this dreary apartment.” He turned me by my shoulders toward him. “The life you deserve.”

“What about my job now and yours? What about friends and my family?” It wasn’t like we had much. Neal had no family and all I had was a sister who lived in Evansville, Indiana, with her husband and two kids.

“We have to disappear—vanish into thin air. Just imagine a baby girl in your arms. We will be a family.”

I took a deep breath. “If we say no, what happens to her—the baby?”

Neal shrugged. “I can’t say. Honestly, I don’t know.”

My mind filled with the horrors of the Sparrows. What would that man do to a baby? I couldn’t even think about it. I turned to Neal. “Then yes.”

“I love you, Rebecca Curry. I’m saying that now because all I know is that tomorrow your name will have changed.”

It was too much to process. “Do you know what my name will be?”

“I’m not supposed to, but I saw it on his desk. You will be Josey Marsh.”

“You?”

“Byron Marsh.”