“Why are you here?” I asked Jeffrey.

I dropped my weapon to point at the floor.

His sneer only made me hate him more, and everything he’d become, which he probably wanted. “Cleaning up your mess. We both know you don’t have the balls for this life.”

“I don’t need you to protect me, Jeffery.”

“Jeff,” he spat. “Are you so sure? Can you kill her?”

He shook his weapon at the woman’s head. I’d almost forgotten she was there. There was no way I was answering his question.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, as the woman sobbed at his feet.

“I didn’t go to jail for you to end up here.”

I ate up the distance between us. “What do you think happened when you went to juvie?”

Jeff’s arm went slack. The gun hung loose at his side.

“Yeah, I went through the same shit they put you through. The ride through the woods to drop a brick off in the bathroom, threatening a girl I liked. You didn’t save me from shit.”

Surprised widened his eyes.

“They said they’d leave you alone,” he said.

“Yeah and you believed them. I fucking needed you…my brother, and you weren’t there. When you got out, you were theirs. You left Dad and me for them.”

He raised up his palm, revealing the small scar there. “Blood brothers, remember? You can’t replace me with that rich boy.”

“Tade has been more of a brother to me than you have.”

A vein throbbed on his forehead as he murdered me with his next words.

“I did this for you, brother.”

Spittle flew from his mouth. He looked down at his palm with a slightly raised white line that mirrored my own before he turned and punched the wall.

“I had no fucking choice. You weren’t there when they shot Mom.”

I’d been there. Though I hadn’t been born yet. Mom had been pregnant with me when she’d been shot. They couldn’t save her, but they managed to save me.

“No, but I’ve been taking care of Ashley and your kids since you’ve been inside.”

My brother hadn’t stayed away from the girl he loved. He’d knocked her up while her husband was on tour.

The woman between us moaned out undetermined words, drawing our attention back to her. Then clapping came from the distance.

“Touching.” Bear stepped in behind me.

I turned so my back was to the wall, remembering the first time he’d made me do something for the family. I’d barely gotten back from dropping off the package to save my father. Dad told me later that Jeff had gone through the exact same thing.

“Is this another one of your tests?” I asked.

“I’m surprised you showed up. We have a squealer in our midst. I would have bet my life it was you.”

“Leave him alone,” Jeffery yelled.

Bear raised his gun, silencing us all except the woman’s muted cries behind the duct tape over her mouth.

“So what’s the play?” I asked, stepping in Bear’s path and raising my gun.

“You fucking aim that gun I gave you in the right direction and do what I asked.”

I didn’t trust him and I felt sweat trickling down my back.

“And when I do, are you going to shoot me?”

“Gavin, let me handle this,” Jeffrey said.

Bear ignored him and laughed. “Don’t trust me.” I didn’t answer that. “If the boss thinks you’re an asset, you’ll survive the night. Prove your worth and shoot the stupid bitch. If you don’t, she dies anyway and so do you, your brother, and your father.”

What choice did I have? He had me cornered in a way I never thought I’d be able to get out of. I muttered an apology, shifted my aim, and fired.

“I’m the one talking to the Feds,” my stupid brother said, in his final attempt to save me.

They were the last words from his mouth as Bear fired. I turned to see his eye explode, blood shooting out the back of his head.

I think I yelled No, but automatically, I turned and fired at Bear’s center mass.

Then there was the sound of another shot before all went silent again.

Sharp pain lanced through my chest, knocking me off my feet. In that moment of absolute weightlessness, I had so many regrets for all the things that I’d left unsaid.

Love.

It had seemed so far out of my grasp.

Now the time to claim it had passed.

The impact with the floor stole all the breath from my lungs. I heard a scream and wondered dully if that was me.

How had things gotten so out of hand?

It was far too late to care as darkness encroached on my vision like an invader.

The warm pool that grew beneath me only confirmed what I already knew.

I closed my eyes, unable to hold them open a second longer.

I managed to say, “I’m sorry.” But I didn’t know if my words had been heard outside of my head.

* * *

Still, no word from Gavin. But my attention was diverted as I drove onto Mom’s street. Flashing lights of red and blue colored the area. I slowed at the police tape and jumped out when I noticed the activity coming from our house.

A cop stopped me from crossing the line, but I frantically told him that was my house. It took me showing my driver’s license, which I hadn’t changed yet, to prove it.

Wind whipped through my hair as I tore across the neighbor’s yard and into my own. Mom came out of the house looking dazed.

When she saw me, her eyes lit up and then we were both clinging to each other crying.

“What happened?”

She shook her head, her eyes stained by mascara tears. “I don’t know. A man came in the house with a gun shortly after I got off the phone with you. All I could think was you were coming over. I prayed he’d do it quickly and leave.”

We were sobbing again until my world turned to confetti. Not the happy kind, but that of ash blowing in the wind.

“No,” I cried.

Gavin was wheeled out of the house with a police escort. It didn’t make sense. Mom held on tight as I tried to run to him.

“Megan, you can’t. He came in with a gun prepared to kill.”

“No! He wouldn’t do that. Not to me.”

Dead eyes met mine in a face I loved. He stared right through me as if I didn’t exist as he was carted away.

“I don’t believe it.”

“Megan, stop. I was there. He pointed a gun to my head. If Lee hadn’t come in...”

She could have told me Jesus Christ had risen again and I wouldn’t have heard her. My eyes lingered on the man I loved. My mind wouldn’t accept that he’d been there.

Why? I hadn’t introduced him to her as my boyfriend. He’d only seen her once at graduation. But I didn’t have any answers. She wouldn’t lie. So why had he been there with a gun? The potential answers hurt too much.

I didn’t allow myself to dwell on all the reasons he’d avoided my calls.

Instead, after Mom had made her statement, we’d gone to the lake house. Tade invited us and I wasn’t allowed to see Gavin. Everyone looked at me with pity. All I could do was cry and Reagan held me. No one had answers, but I did.

Somehow he’d done this for me. I couldn’t come up with a single reason why killing my mother would help us be together. I had to believe he’d known what he was doing. And maybe I was being stupid and naive.