Chapter 2
CHAPTER
TWO
JONAH
I should’ve ignored the call the second I saw his name flash across my screen. But he said he needed me. So like the loser I am, I came. Now he’s standing by my front door like he never left.
“Jonah.” He steps out of the shadow as if he has a right to be here. He doesn’t. He’s ten years too late, and still, I can’t say no.
“Dad.” I stop on the gravel. My keys are still clenched in my hand. He stands a few feet away, hands shoved into his jacket. “You said you needed me. What is it?”
He rubs his neck. His eyes flick past my shoulder, down the drive, then back again. “I need you to come with me.”
“Come with you? Where to?” I stare at him. A strand of blond hair falls forward and I shove it back behind my ear. I haven’t cut it in months. “Right now?”
“It’s only a short ride.”
I shift my weight. My feet are throbbing inside my shoes. “Where to? I just came off a twelve-hour shift at the hospital.” As if to prove the point, my scrubs cling to my legs, damp and stiff with the smell of the ER. I want them off my skin.
“We’ll be quick. I need you, son.”
My chest tightens. I hate that his voice still sounds familiar, and I hate that I’ve missed him. I cross my arms, my nails biting into the cheap fabric of my sleeves. “What does that mean? Are you in trouble?”
His gaze flicks over the worn steps, the busted railing, and the trash scattered across the drive. His mouth thins into a hard line when he glances at his watch. “No. But I will be if we’re late. You were always difficult.”
My jaw locks. “Is that why you left?”
Irritation flashes across his face. “And dramatic.” He turns toward the driveway. “I don’t have time for this. Come on. We’ll talk on the way.”
“I’m not—”
“Jonah.” The word lands like it always did.
You’re the biggest mistake of my life.
I swallow hard. “Can I at least change? Maybe shower? I smell like antiseptic.”
He doesn’t respond. When I glance back, he’s already walking toward the car idling at the curb.
I should turn around. I should tell him to fuck himself and crash in bed, remembering his silence for the past ten years.
But I don’t. I follow him because a part of me is still that kid waiting by the window for a man who never came home.
From up close, the car is worse. Old coffee cups and fast-food bags crowd the floor. It smells like stale smoke and cheap air freshener. Dad drives without looking at me. The trailer park slides past, then the dark strip of road lined with closed shops and crappy bars.
I shouldn’t be in a car with the man who kicked me out the day Mom was buried, her clothes still in the closet. He didn’t even say goodbye.
Dad clears his throat. “I told you a long time ago you should get yourself a proper job. One that pays decently.”
“Like your job, you mean?” I stare at the glove compartment. “As strange as it might sound to you, I love what I do.”
He wrinkles his nose.
“So, you disappear for ten years, and now you call. Tell me why you needed me.”
His jaw tightens. He keeps his eyes on the road. “I told you I needed you to come with me.”
“Where?”
He doesn’t answer right away. “It’s not far.”
Around us, the streets change. Brick gives way to high walls and cameras that track the car. Every lens we pass feels like a deadbolt sliding home, but I stay in the seat and let him drive me into it.
I keep waiting for the moment I’ll wake up. This isn't my life. This is a scene from a movie I’d usually turn off because it feels too impossible to believe. “Where are we?”
“This won’t take long.”
We slow near a guarded gate. Two men stand under a small roof in black coats and earpieces. One looks through the windshield while the other leans toward the window. Dad rolls it down and gives his name.
When the gate slides open, my heart gives a weird lurch. “Dad,” I say quietly. “What is this place?”
“Don’t start now, Jonah. Just behave. It’s important.” His hand tightens on the wheel.
“Behave?” Like I’m fourteen again and talked back at dinner. “Really? You’re dragging me to this place and—”
I shut my mouth as the headlights sweep over the drive. The mansion is massive, a wall of white stone and glass. Before the car even stops, it is swarmed by guards. “Dad…”
“I told you, this will only be a short meeting.” He parks under an arch. Before we even have time to get out, the car is already swarmed by guards. They’re all dressed in the same black coats, earpieces tucked away, coiled wires disappearing into their collars.
I keep waiting for the moment I’ll wake up. This isn't my life. This is a scene from a movie I’d usually turn off because it feels too impossible to believe.
“Are those guns?” Fuck me, they are.
“This way,” the tallest of them says. Two of them guide us up the steps. I hear them talking in a foreign language. I think it’s Russian, but I’m not sure. I was never gifted in the language department.
Inside, there’s a sharp undertone of disinfectant, like someone wiped down a surface recently. I shiver at the thought.
“Rader.” A man in a dark suit stands near the bottom of the staircase.
“Thank you for seeing me,” Dad starts. “I appreciate—”
“Follow me.”
My father obeys. We move down a hallway lined with closed doors. Two more men stand at the corners, hands behind their backs, their eyes fixed ahead.
My pulse beats in my throat. “Dad,” I whisper. “I don’t like this. Who are these people?”
He keeps walking. “Stop talking and keep up.”
“You dragged me out here in the middle of the night. You can give me one straight answer.” Of course, he gives me nothing.
The hallway opens into a wide room, and everything gets worse from there. It looks like a living room at first glance, but my eyes land on the wrong thing.
The man in the chair.
He sits in the center of the room, his socks wet with something dark on the floor. His hands are tied behind the chair. A bruise swells along his jaw, and one eye is already closing. Two guards stand on either side of him.
“What the hell,” I breathe. I stop walking. He must have heard me, because the man looks up. Our gazes meet before he drops his like he’s been trained not to stare.
“Jack Rader. You finally decided to show up.”
A large couch dominates the far wall. A man sits there, watching us.
He shifts back into the cushions and snaps his fingers.
A guard steps forward and pours a drink.
I flinch at the sound of the liquid hitting the glass.
The man takes a sip, his eyes already locked on mine.
He swallows and tips the glass in my direction. “Who’s your friend?”
“He’s my son.” Dad’s shoulders hunch. He looks smaller than he did on my porch. Smaller than the man in the chair.
The man’s mouth quirks. “That wasn’t part of our arrangement.”
“I told you I could fix this,” Dad says quickly.
“Your son,” the man repeats, tasting it, his eyes still on me. “And every time you swear you’ll fix this, it falls apart. Last month. The month before.” He tips his glass. “You owe a lot.”
I shift on my feet, unease climbing fast. Dad swallows. “Please. I just need more time.” His hands shake. “I swear I can make it right.”
“This is not a place where you make things right.” He takes another sip. “This is where you pay.”
“And he will,” I blurt. All gazes shift to me. “I mean… he’s got a job. He’ll get you the money.”
Dad fumbles in his inner pocket and pulls out a folded, stained piece of paper. He holds it out with a shaking hand. “I’ve got a contract. The petrol station on the highway. It’s full-time, steady hours. I can start making payments tonight.”
The man in the suit doesn't take the paper. A guard swipes it, glancing at the cheap print before handing it over. The man on the couch stares at the document for a second, then lets out a dry, sharp exhale that isn't a laugh. A chill skims up my arms.
“A petrol station, Jack? You’re giving me a shift at a pump?” He lets the paper flutter to the floor. “You’d have to work three lifetimes just to cover the interest.” I shiver, the weight of the room suddenly doubling.
“Please,” Dad says, his voice cracking as he steps closer. He bends, scoops the contract off the floor, and shoves it back into his inner pocket. “I’m trying. I brought my boy. You’ve got a family, don’t you? You aren’t the kind of man who’d kill a father right in front of his own son.”
I turn back to the man in the chair, heat crawling up my neck. “Whatever he owes you,” I say, forcing the words out, “we’ll figure it out.”
His mouth curves. “I’m glad you’re so positive, cub.” He lifts his glass. “But you’ll have to work a few good years to pay back a hundred thousand dollars.”
My mouth falls open. “A…”
A hundred thousand?
Oh shit.
The number is a dead weight in my stomach. It turns the last thirty minutes into a trap. I can feel the walls of this room closing in, even though the ceiling is twenty feet high.
“Jonah—” I feel Dad’s gaze on me, waiting for something I don’t have.
“Move. Now. Let’s go.” My heart hammers as I steer him toward the doorway. I know it won’t work. I know that. But fear sends a sharp shot of adrenaline through my veins. I’m getting the hell out of here. I have to.
The man on the couch tips back his head and laughs. “My, Jack Rader, you didn’t tell me your son was this entertaining. But your papa here is in trouble. And in our world, trouble gets settled with blood. Lots of it.”
As if on cue, the shackled man lets out a muffled howl. Blood drips from his calves onto his socks, each drop falling to the floor. Around us, guards close the space with quiet steps, forming a wall without touching me.
The man on the couch leans forward, his eyes fixed on me now, unblinking. “You know how this works. Payment comes due. And when a man can’t pay, the account is settled.”
Dad jerks beside me. I tighten my grip on his arm, instinct screaming to move. A guard steps into my path.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Thud.
I freeze. A knife buries itself in the doorframe beside my hand, the handle still quivering. I flinch. The room goes quiet.
“Not so fast,” a voice says from the doorway. “Not before I decide your place here.”