Alex had heard people use the phrase “life changing event” before, and except in the case of tragedies he’d generally thought it was a bunch of crap. Okay, so you won the lottery. Did you suddenly gold-plate your bathroom and stop wearing pants? No? So your life isn’t really all that different.

Then he signed the contract with Valor.

The first thing that happened was his signing bonus. It was half a year’s salary, under the new contract, or well over a year’s salary under BSNY. It was definitely enough for him to make a substantial down payment on a condominium right here in the Bronx, a two bedroom—or even more, which seemed like an unspeakable luxury—for him and Maya. He hadn’t started looking yet, because he still couldn’t make himself believe it, but he could. The option was there.

Next came the phone calls. He called Jenny before he sent a formal message. Jenny was one of his best friends, and the last thing he wanted was to jam her up. She cried, but she said they were tears of joy and insisted they get together to celebrate. She even asked if they could do it that night, which he was happy to oblige.

He had to work with people from Valor to talk about scheduling. The meeting requests seemed constant, and he burned three client dishes before it occurred to him that he didn’t need to reply to every message right away. He figured out how to pace himself pretty quickly, and set up a special ringtone for messages and calls from Inge so he knew what was important. Everything else could wait.

His first glance through those meeting requests told him more about all the ways his life was about to change than any contract, “behind the scenes” show or article, or helpful and earnest advice from insiders could have. There were appointments with wardrobe. There were appointments with makeup. There were appointments with the writers, of whom he apparently was one now. That got him a whole separate contract, and a whole separate union to deal with, but he had time to worry about that.

He had meetings with the equipment managers, with set designers, and with a “production team” to talk about sponsorship and product placement. He wasn’t going to get time off between leaving one job and starting another. There wasn’t going to be a learning curve, either. He was going to sink or swim.

He thought of his bank account. He thought of his tiny studio, and he thought of a fictitious two-bedroom condo he’d own himself. Maybe even one with in-unit laundry, if they had that in the Bronx. He could do this. He could.

He met Jenny after work over at Buddy’s, with Maya strapped to his chest as always. She was growing like a weed, and soon she’d be too big for the carrier. He’d miss this, and he got the feeling she probably would too. She seemed to get a kick out of hanging out and looking out at the world, or reversing it and falling asleep on his chest.

Jenny snapped a picture of the two of them like that, while he sipped a Cubata. “Someday, she’s going to appreciate these pictures. And so will you.” She ran her dark fingers through Maya’s curly hair. “She definitely seems to love you.”

“Well, it’s mutual. I’m lucky, you know? I get the good parts. I don’t have to deal with the three AM feedings or labor pains.” He chuckled softly and kissed the top of Maya’s head. “I’d rather have Pauline alive, but since I can’t have that—well.”

Jenny bowed her head for a moment, and then she delicately changed the subject. “So. You’re going to be a big TV star now.”

“I don’t know about big, but yeah. This is so far outside of anything I’ve ever done in my life I can’t even wrap my head around it. I’m doing it, but it’s just so strange. Who do they think is going to be watching this? It’s me and Buddy, for crying out loud.” He grimaced as Buddy strode up to him.

“Hey, you watch it, would you? Everyone wants to watch you and me. We’re going to make the Bronx famous for something besides home runs and batteries, okay?”

Alex grinned. “Yeah. I mean they’re putting this much money up front on us, so someone besides us must think it’s going to work, right?”

“Damn straight.” Buddy pounded on the table.

Vinnie and Frank entered the bar. Neither of them were guys who ran, as a general rule, but they were definitely walking faster than Alex had ever seen them move before. They were walking straight toward Alex, too, and a deep pit appeared in his stomach. This couldn’t be good. Whatever was going on, whatever horror had generated in the underworld where they lived, it couldn’t mean anything good for Alex’s life now.

Frank and Vinnie had been good to him, though, and they worked for someone who’d been better still. He didn’t let any of his fear or disappointment show up on his face when he turned to them. “Hey, guys. What’s going on?”

Frank straightened his tie. Vinnie cleared his throat a few times. “Jimmy Senior sent us down.” He glanced over at Jenny and then shrugged. Oh crap. Alex knew whatever was going on, it was worse than he thought. Jenny didn’t know about Jimmy Senior, or about that side of his life at all. If these guys didn’t care that she heard them, whatever they had to say had to be bad.

“Is he okay? Is he hurt?” Alex clutched Maya. He didn’t know what he could do to help Senior, but he’d do it if he could.

“No.” Frank wiped a bit of sweat away from his temple. “You might want to sit down.”

Jenny narrowed her eyes at him. “He is sitting down.”

“Right. Sorry. Force of habit. Um, Alex, Senior got a call from a buddy of ours, he works at Bedford Hills.”

Just the name Bedford Hills sent a shiver down Alex’s spine. His mother was locked away in Bedford Hills, and she was never getting out. “Jimmy Senior’s got friends at Bedford Hills?” he asked stupidly. His voice sounded tinny to his ears, but he couldn’t worry about that now. Everything seemed distant, and he grabbed onto the bar for support. Maya wiggled in her carrier, sensing his distress.

“He’s got friends everywhere,” Vinnie said. “But yeah, he’s also got a friend at Bedford Hills. And there was an incident there today. Another inmate went after your mom.”

Jenny grabbed onto Alex’s arm. “What happened?” she asked in a quiet voice. “What happened then?”

“Well, the inmate in question’s been taken care of, no problem. Denise Cary was a protected inmate. She’d have been a protected inmate even if Alex wasn’t her son.” Frank managed a grin. “She was a good lady, you know? She taught a lot of domestic violence education classes. But, ah, she’s at Northern Westchester Hospital.”

The bar spun. Alex was on a centrifuge, like cotton candy at a carnival, and he couldn’t get off. “They took her off site to a real hospital.”

Buddy put something to his lips. Alex realized after a second that it was overproof rum. “If they took her offsite to a hospital, it means there’s something they can do for her,” Buddy said, as Alex took a gulp. The world righted itself again.

“But, if they took her off site, it means they’re scared they’re going to lose her.” He closed his eyes and held onto his little girl. “They don’t like to take inmates outside the walls, especially the lifers.”

Vinnie put a hand on his shoulder. “That’s why we’re here, man. Come on, we’ve got a car waiting out front. We can get you up there fast.”

Alex didn’t have to wait to be told twice. He followed his friends, while Buddy held down the fort at his bar. Jenny followed Alex, on the grounds that he was going to need moral support either way. Alex was surprised to find a proper car seat in the waiting town car, and embarrassed when he didn’t know how to use it.

Jenny helped.

The ride up to Mt. Kisko, the nearest town to the prison with a hospital, took forty minutes. Alex didn’t speak for the duration of the ride. His mind was too full of images, pictures of the worst thing to happen. He imagined her bleeding out before he could get there. He could see her—oddly enough, just as he’d been the last time he saw her—chained to a gurney and not allowed to speak. He saw her dead on arrival. He saw them operating on her without anesthesia, which didn’t seem reasonable but everyone knew prisoners weren’t citizens.

Once they arrived, he fought the urge to run into the emergency room and make demands. She was his mother, but she was also a convicted murderer. The hospital wouldn’t give him any information if he seemed like a screaming lunatic. He let Jenny, Vinnie, and Frank march him in while he carried Maya.

The receptionists let them in, and the nurses stayed out of the way. The correctional officers, on the other hand, tried to obstruct their path. “Guys, I’m sure you’re here for a reason. But this woman, she’s a killer. A murderer. She killed her own husband in cold blood. His family has the right to justice, and that doesn’t involve a bunch of weeping people at her bedside.”

Alex drew himself up to his full height. “His family?”

“Yes. The man she murdered has a family. He left a son behind.”

“You mean me.” Alex pressed his lips together.

The correctional officer opened his mouth. He shut it again. “I’ll just…go stand over here.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Alex stepped past him and into the treatment bay.

His mother was gray. The past decade and change—almost two decades now—hadn’t been kind to her. She should be close to fifty now, but she looked closer to seventy or more. Her eyes fluttered open when he walked into the room, but she was dull and listless. “Who’s that?” she asked.

Alex stopped in his tracks. He shouldn’t have expected her to recognize him. He’d been a tiny boy when she’d been taken from him. He hadn’t even tested as an omega yet. She wouldn’t recognize him now, a grown and hardened man. “It’s Alex,” he told her in a soft voice.

She scowled, and a nearby nurse gestured to him. “She’s on enough morphine to kill an elephant,” she whispered. “All we can do at this point is try to keep her comfortable.”

Alex stopped breathing for a second. It took his mother’s reedy voice to bring him back. “Alex? If I didn’t want him to see me in a prison jumpsuit why the hell would I want him to see me like this?”

Alex stepped forward and took his mother’s hand. “I want to see you anyway I can, Mama. I love you.”

She stared at him, and her eyes seemed oddly clear for someone so doped up it would be toxic to an elephant. “I love you too, Alex. Why do you think I didn’t want you to see me like this?”

Alex huffed out a little laugh. “I’ve been proud of you, Mama. It was hard, at first. They wouldn’t let me come see you, or write to you, and I didn’t understand why. But I always loved you. And I get why. I, ah, I’ve been working. For groups that help folks like you.”

She patted his hand. “Does it do any good?”

He sighed and rubbed Maya’s back. “Sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes.” He kissed her hand. “The one who did this to you, she can’t do this to anyone again. That’s a promise.”

“Meh.” Mama couldn’t move around much, but she closed her eyes. “She had to do it. Told me so. Said they were going to pay for her lawyer.”

“Did they say who?” Alex whispered to her. If Mama had gotten killed because of some crap Jimmy Senior was wrapped up in, Alex didn’t know what he’d do.

“Fletcher.” Mama coughed. “The name was Fletcher. She told me that.”

Alex had to draw on all his years of training not to show any reaction. “Okay. You were a good mom, you know? You did everything you could to keep us safe.”

“I did.” She fell silent for a long moment, and she didn’t open her eyes again. Alex wondered if she’d fallen asleep, but she spoke again. “Do you forgive me for getting you put into foster care?”

Alex sighed and kissed his mother’s hand again. He didn’t know if she felt it or not. “It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t the same as being with you, but it wasn’t like they make it sound on TV. There’s nothing to forgive you for. He made it necessary. Everything, even this, it’s all on him. All the good, that’s you.”

Mama sighed then, and she didn’t speak again. Her heart rate changed, and so did some of the other numbers on the monitor. Alex didn’t have to be a doctor to know she wasn’t going to last long.

The nurse turned to him. “Her condition was too bad to operate. Her attacker really screwed her up. Multiple organs were affected, and there was really just nothing we could do.”

Alex nodded. He couldn’t speak. Mama wasn’t going to open her eyes again.

He stayed with her until the end. Jenny, Vinnie, and Frank stayed with him. He didn’t sob or cry when the heart monitor switched to a flat line. Mama had been locked up for close to twenty years, and she’d have been locked up for more if this hadn’t happened.

Maybe Alex could have used his money from the show, or any fame he might have garnered, to get his mother pardoned. It was a long shot, and he couldn’t play the what if game. He hated the people who had done this to Mama, but he had to admit this was the freest she was going to get.

He left the hospital, accompanied by his friends. They drove back to the Bronx in silence. Jenny told him, when they stopped, she would take care of arranging coverage for him the next day. He should stay home and take care of himself.

He hugged her goodbye before heading into his apartment. He didn’t know entirely how to feel, but maybe clarity would come with the morning.

* * *

Sol found out about Alex’s mother the next morning, when Inge told him they wouldn’t be seeing Maya today. She looked paler than normal and hugged Carsten closer than was typical, so naturally Sol wondered what was going on. She explained that Alex’s mother had been killed in an attack in prison last night, and went ahead with taking Carsten to school.

Sol hadn’t known Alex’s mother. He’d known his mother was in jail, of course. It was hard not to know. That was the whole reason Alex had been in foster care in the first place. Sol just hadn’t thought much about her. He hadn’t given her plight much attention at all. She wasn’t a factor.

He wished he could say he was surprised. She’d been in prison for violent reasons, and of course prisons were violent places. He was surprised she’d lasted as long as she had, and a part of him figured if she hadn’t wanted to meet a messy end like that, she probably shouldn’t have murdered her husband.

He called Alex, though, because Alex had to be affected somehow. “How are you doing?”

Alex sounded like a wreck, like he hadn’t slept in a year. “I’m getting by. It’s weird. I hate the people who did this to her. But she wasn’t ever getting out, you know? So at least she’s free now? I don’t know. It’s weird.”

Sol could hear Maya laughing in the background. “What’s the baby doing?”

“I got her this bouncer. It takes up a good chunk of the apartment, but she loves it. She just bounces and laughs, and laughs and bounces. It works for her, I guess.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I’m just…I know this is something that was done to her, because of me. And I’m angry, and I’m guilty, and I don’t know what to do. It’s not a good feeling, you know?”

Sol didn’t know. He had no idea how to respond. And since when was Alex this kind of paranoid guy? “Do you think it’s because of your…you know, your friends?” Maybe Alex’s phone was bugged. Sol didn’t know. He tried to think of the few movies he’d seen about that sort of lifestyle. The Feds did that kind of thing, right?

Alex huffed out a quiet laugh. “No. No, it’s not because of them. She spoke with her killer, before she was attacked. A person named Fletcher told her she’d pay for a decent lawyer for the killer’s appeal if she killed my mom.”

Sol’s mouth tasted bitter suddenly, like it had filled with bile without his knowledge. “That’s not—Alex, we don’t do that kind of thing. Lena’s a disgusting human being, but she wouldn’t ever think to go into a prison and bribe an inmate to murder another inmate. She doesn’t see criminals as humans. She’d never go talk to one.”

Alex was too tired to fight about it. “All I know is what Mom told me. She was there, I wasn’t. And the name Fletcher wouldn’t mean anything to her, so I’m going to buy what she’s selling. What you do is up to you, of course. It’s not like I haven’t met the lady in question. It’s not like I don’t know she’s pretty damn nuts.”

“Please, Alex. She’s a very rich lady. Once you pass into that income bracket you’re ‘eccentric.’” Sol cringed at his own joke as soon as it left his mouth, but he couldn’t pull it back now.

Fortunately, Alex’s grief wasn’t so all-encompassing that he couldn’t chuckle. “Then she’s pretty goddamn eccentric to be waving a knife in people’s faces. But hey, who am I to judge?” He yawned. “Anyway, it’s time for my human piranha here to eat again. I think she’s gearing up for a growth spurt. I can’t shovel food into that little face fast enough. Thanks for calling.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

“I will. Thanks, Sol.” Alex hung up.

Sol bowed his head for a moment. Alex wouldn’t know about his gesture, but at least he’d made it.

Then he got back to work. He had a ton of work to do. Apparently Woodham wanted to make Alex and Buddy writers for their show as well as stars, on the grounds that it would give the show more authenticity. Sol trusted Woodham to know what he was doing with regards to television, but neither of these guys had an education. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Alex had finished his Associate’s degree while he was still in high school. He’d majored in culinary arts, though, not in English or Communication.

Well, whatever. If he was going to trust his subordinates to do their jobs, he had to stop second guessing them at every turn. That meant if Woodham, with his stellar track record, wanted to give the Bronx boys a seat at the writers’ table, he could get away with it.

He had six new acquisitions on the music side of the business to consider, to include two talents that needed to be extracted from ugly contracts with exploitive labels. One was an exceptional mess. The label itself had shut down, but the contracts were held by a lender who had gotten it into their head that they could somehow get money out of artists who couldn’t legally put out music.

Sol buried himself in the case. It was complex, and he didn’t want to think of the original company as exploitive when he started. Companies went under all the time, and not necessarily through any fault of their own. In this case, though, they’d had every opportunity to protect their people, and they hadn’t.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if Valor Entertainment could play the knight in shining armor and rescue not only this one artist, but the entire stable, from the lender?

It wouldn’t be easy. They had the cash to do it, but it might leave them unable to meet other needs later on if the market turned. Furthermore, Sol didn’t want to just hand the asking price over to the other company. They were dicks. He didn’t want to give them a dime more than he was forced to give.

He worked through his lunch, and he didn’t notice as the hours passed after that. In fact, he only noticed most of the day had slipped away when the glass door to his office swung open and a familiar face slid inside.

Stuart had been handsome once, when he’d been younger. He might be handsome still, but decades of heavy drug use take their toll on the skin and hair. He’d lost several teeth over the years, and his once-luscious hair had gotten stringy. He could stand to wash it, too.

“You’re not supposed to be here.” Sol scowled at his ex and sent an instant message to his admin. She’d call the police and have him removed. Hopefully he had something on him that would get him sent away for a very long time.

Stuart rolled his eyes and flopped down into one of Sol’s chairs. “Simmer down, Sol. I’m just here to talk. We never did much of that, did we? I tried and tried, but you just brushed me off.”

“It helps if your words aren’t slurred.” Sol gave his ex a thumbs up. “The door’s over there.”

“I’m not leaving. I’m your husband. I belong with you. And with my child. Oh yeah, that’s right. He is my son, isn’t he? I’ve still got the C-section scar to prove it. He’s got nothing to do with that Bronx whore you’ve been running around with.”

Sol scoffed. “Even if I were seeing someone new, which I’m not, it wouldn’t be your business.” His muscles tensed. Mentioning the Bronx was oddly specific, especially since Stuart was usually too high to know which shoe was which.

“Don’t lie to me!” Stuart jumped to his feet and screamed. “Don’t you lie to me! Mommy found him at your house, near my son!”

“You mean my cook? He was protecting Carsten from your mother’s knife. A good parent would recognize that the kind of grandma who goes around stabbing the nanny probably isn’t the kind of grandma who should be around his kid.” Sol got up slowly, eyes on Stuart. He didn’t want to startle his ex, because God alone knew what he was carrying, but he didn’t want to be caught unaware either.

“Your cook. I’m sure. A younger guy, who hasn’t gone and ruined his body giving birth to your child. I’d be insulted if we had a love match.”

“Which we never did.” Where were those cops? Sol kept his hands loose at his sides, ready to strike. “That wasn’t a secret to you.”

“You did love me, though. You did. By the end.”

“No. I tried to treat you with the respect you deserved, and then I tried to treat you with the respect I wanted you to deserve, but I was in love with someone else when we got married. And that never did stop.” Sol clenched his teeth. It hadn’t stopped, and it wouldn’t stop. “Why are you here?”

“Look. We’re getting back together. It’s the right decision for Carsten, and for our families. Your father wants it, my parents want it, we both want it.”

“I don’t want it. And it’s the opposite of the right decision for Carsten. You’re not safe for him. I tried for years to get you clean, Stuart. You didn’t want to be clean. You still don’t.”

“I don’t need to be clean to be your husband. Do you think that disgusting little rat from the Bronx is some kind of saint? He’s no saint. He’s no prize. No one from up there is. He’s running around with someone else’s baby, but you think he’s going to come and love you? Please. Get over yourself. Besides, he’s got other things on his mind.”

Sol tilted his head, just a little bit. “What exactly is it that you think he’s got on his mind, Stuart?”

“Didn’t he have an incident with Mommy Dearest last night? Serves the stupid bitch right, though. I’m glad she’s dead. The last thing the world needs is more husband killers running around.” He flounced back into his seat, like someone had flipped a switch. “No one needs that in their life.”

“That didn’t make the news.” Sol pursed his lips and stood up straighter. “It wouldn’t. It was just inmate violence. The general public doesn’t care. They wouldn’t even call the family.” That begged the question of how Stuart had found out, but Sol would worry about that later.

“Oh, come on. Mommy knew exactly what was going on with that stupid little piece of trash. She knew he was turning your head and knew he shouldn’t be. She took care of it, Sol. That’s what she does. That’s what she’s always done.” He flipped around, so his legs were over one arm of the chair and his head and shoulders over the other. “Get with the program. Now he’s distracted, and we can be free. We can focus on what’s important—us—without him pestering you.”

Sol worked his jaw for a moment. “You had his mother killed because you thought he was what was keeping us apart?”

“He is what’s keeping us apart, Sol. He’s in the way. But now he’ll be off crying for his crook of a mama, and I’ll be giving you the kind of good time you couldn’t dream of with a dirtbag like him.”

Officers stepped into Sol’s office. “Stuart Delaney, you’re under arrest for violation of a restraining order and for trespassing.”

“He also confessed to playing a role in arranging for a murder at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility last night.” Sol sat back down behind his desk. He managed to control his descent into his chair, and to make it look cool and deliberate. In reality, his legs had gone so weak they wouldn’t hold him up anymore.

Who did that? Who arranged to take a life simply to distract someone else? He’d turned his nose up at Alex’s tenuous mob connections, but he’d heard Stuart admit to killing Alex’s mother just to split Alex and Sol up. Sol hadn’t wanted to marry Stuart, he hadn’t loved him, but he’d married and fathered a child with him nevertheless. He’d fathered a child and shared a home with this man who could so casually talk about killing someone he didn’t even know, someone who’d never done him a moment of harm.

Stuart was willing to hurt Alex, hurt Alex’s family, because he saw Alex as a threat to a relationship that hadn’t ever existed.

Two uniformed officers dragged Stuart away while Stuart struggled and fought. The first cop stuck around. “What was that about a murder at Bedford Hills?”

Sol rubbed circles into his temples. That was supposed to erase headaches, right? It wasn’t working. He needed a drink. “A guy I know—my cook, actually, although he’s resigning for a better opportunity—his mother was an inmate at Bedford Hills. She was murdered last night. He got the news this morning. Stuart just admitted to me that he and his mother arranged the whole thing because they saw Alex as a threat.”

The cop’s jaw tightened. “That’s not going to hold up in court.”

“I’m aware. I graduated in the top ten in my class at Stanford Law.” Sol softened. “Sorry. I don’t mean to snap at you. It’s obviously a rough day, but you don’t exactly meet people on good days.”

“Not as a general rule.” The cop’s lips twitched, like he was hiding a smile.

“I’m only telling you about the murder because I want you to understand what kind of a man we’re dealing with here. His mother broke into my apartment and stabbed my nanny. The cook saved her and my son. That’s probably why they think he’s such a threat to them. You can investigate Denise Cary’s murder for yourself, of course. Alex lives up in the Bronx—”

“We know where he lives.” The cop grimaced. “He does a lot of work with domestic violence survivors. We’ll send someone around to talk to him. We’ll hold him as long as we can. In the meantime, I’m going to advise you and yours to take every possible precaution.”

“Of course.” Sol took a deep breath. “We’ve been watching our backs since we came to New York.”

“I’ll have a detective get in touch with you, Mr. Delaney.” The cop gave him a card and left.

Sol stared at the card for a second. Then he picked up his phone again.

“Sol?” Alex still sounded like warmed over crap. Maybe it wasn’t reasonable to expect something else. “What’s going on?”

“I just got a visit from Stuart. I had to get the cops involved. You’ll be hearing from someone. He admitted it, Alex. I’m sorry I doubted you before.”

Alex’s voice sounded a little less rough when he replied. “It’s okay. It’s an unreasonable thing for him to do, you know?”

“Yeah. But he still, you know, did it. Anyway. I just wanted to give you the heads up and to apologize.”

“Thanks, Sol. I appreciate that.”

Sol hung up. His hands shook as he put his phone down.