Prologue #2
My pulse speeds as the cop steps aside with a kind smile and waves us in. Mom steps forward first, but she keeps my hand in hers and pulls me forward to step into a fancy office with black curtains and a heavy, wooden desk.
A man sits at the desk with his ankle on his knee, his hands clasped together.
He’s the man from the photo.
His eyes are almost black, the same as his hair.
It’s a little bit strange, because this is a fancy room and there are two other men in here, both wearing black suits.
But the man sitting in the center wears an Army uniform.
He looks like a worker like the rest of us; rough hands, clean shaven, a uniform that isn’t faded, but it’s not brand-new either.
The ankle resting over his knee is covered with scuffed combat boots and socks.
A gun on his thigh, a knife on his ankle.
He clasps a cigar between his fingers, lit so the smoke plumes and spirals into the air.
One of the men in suits is the second man from the photo.
I don’t know his name, and if my mom knows, she’s never said.
He’s not fat, but he’s not skinny either.
I guess I’d call him… well, fed. He wears a shiny silk tie and black shoes.
His hair is combed, and so oily, I can still see the comb lines.
His eyes aren’t as dark as the man’s at the desk, but they’re not light either.
He wears glinting rings on his fat fingers, and holds a lit cigar between his lips, sucking on the end so the red ember glows and his mouth fills with smoke.
I turn when Mom’s hand begins shaking. My eyes drift to the side of her face; she’s so pretty, smiling at the men now like they’re our friends.
Maybe they are. Maybe we’re done living week to week, minute to minute, and now we have new friends.
Powerful friends in police uniforms, suits, and army uniforms. Maybe they’ll help Mom make ends meet so she doesn’t have to work until she passes out.
Maybe they’ll make it so she can eat enough that her ribs don’t poke out so much.
“Jacintha.” The man exhales and sends the plume of smoke across his desk.
We stand at least fifteen feet away, but a hand on Mom’s back – the policeman’s hand – shuffles us a little closer while Mom nervously swallows.
“You look as beautiful as I remember.” He stands slowly, powerfully, and makes Mom and me arch our necks back. “Just as lovely as always.”
If I was older, smarter, less na?ve, I might see what’s going on today as a power imbalance. But in my eleven-year-old brain, all I see is power. And for us, always hungry, always poor, always tired, power to me is like a flame to a moth, and if my mom is smiling as she is now, it must be okay.
“Yes,” she says in a whisper. “We’re here.”
The army man brings his eyes over to me, looking me up and down for a long minute before he turns back to Mom. “You brought the boy. He looks good; tall, solid.”
“I guess that was to be expected.” Mom’s nervous laugh makes me frown. “His father is broad and strong.”
“Yes…” He sniffs, leans toward a crystal ashtray and taps the cigar against the side. “Hayes.” He looks to the man on my left, the man with the sausage fingers, and lifts his chin. “Take him to the girls. He can get to know his family while Jacintha and I speak.”
“My family?” My gaze darts between the two men. “What?”
“Wait.” He lifts a hand when Hayes grabs my collar. “What’s your name, boy?”
“Um…” I look to my mom and frown when her shaking hand gets shakier. She purses her lips to contain her nerves, but she lets them curl up just a fraction, as though to encourage me to speak. “Gunner, sir. My name is Gunner.”
“Gunner.” He nods thoughtfully. “Strong name. Prophetic, perhaps. Do you know how to use guns, kid?”
My eyes widen. “Um, no, sir. I’ve never used one.”
His dark eyes flicker over my shoulder to the policeman behind me. “We’ll teach him.”
“Wait, no—” Mom steps forward to object, but stops again when the final man in the suit peels his coat back and reveals a shiny pistol.
With a lifted brow, the army man watches her for a minute, then he looks over my shoulder. “Take him to the girls. We’ll be done in an hour or so.”
Fat-fingered-man grabs my collar and pulls me away. He’s not rough, he doesn’t hurt me, but he makes me move and doesn’t slow when I trip on my feet. “Move your ass, kid.”
“But my mom.”
He pushes me past the policeman and through the door. “She’s fine. She has business to see to, but you can see her again in a bit.”
“Where are you taking me?” I stumble along the hall, past the stair landing and into another hall.
Stopping outside a door, he lifts his chin. “My daughters are in there.” He leans lower, so our eyes are level. “If you touch either of them, I’ll snap your scrawny fucking arms.”
“My…” My eyes widen. “What?”
He smiles the way he did back in the other room. It’s fake and slimy. “My daughters are perfect. Introduce yourself, but don’t touch them. Capiche?”
“Umm…”
Grunting, he snaps the handle down and opens the door to reveal a bunch of kids, three of which are wrestling in the middle of the office.
This one isn’t as fancy as the first office, but it’s not ugly either.
But what makes it the coolest is that these girls are my age.
Maybe a little younger. They’re definitely not grown, and they’re not in police or army uniforms — uniforms I thought cool until now.
“Girls!” The man claps his hands loud enough that I jump, and the girls fall apart.
A toddler sits in the far corner on his own, quietly stacking blocks and bouncing his shoulders. Unfazed by the clapping — and the fighting — he looks up for a moment to assess the room, but goes back to stacking when he decides he’s uninterested in the rest of us.
“This is Gunner,” the man says in his gravelly voice. “He’s one of us now, so welcome him to the family.”
Two of the girls are beanpole thin. They’re younger than me by a few years, wear sundresses, tights, and black Mary Janes.
I’m my mom’s only child, so it’s not like I have sisters at home, but I know what Mary Janes are, because the rich girls in my school wear them most days.
The two thin girls are totally sisters, because they have the same pointy noses and thin lips.
Their hair is the same; color, length, thickness.
But the third girl, the one on the bottom of the pile, is a little chunky.
She wears a dress too, and a cute coat that goes to her knees, but where the other two look like they enjoy their fancy dresses, the third looks like maybe she’s counting the seconds to toss it all away and wear shorts instead.
Her legs are thick enough for her knees to have dimples, which is kinda…
well… cool. I’ve never met someone with knees like that before.
All three girls pant, like they’ve been wrestling awhile, but the top two jump up super fast and turn to us, while the other stays down and sprawls back.
Exhausted, she opens her legs a little, so I see a flash of white underwear, but I’ve seen my mom’s a million times before, so I turn away and pretend I didn’t see.
“Girls.” The man snaps his fingers and brings his daughters skipping forward. “Stella and Zoey, this is Gunner. I want you to make him feel welcome.”
“Daddy?” One of them looks up from beneath her lashes and makes puppy dog eyes. “He looks weird. Can we come with you?”
“No. Daddy’s got to take care of some business for now, but we’ll be done in a bit. Gunner’s coming back to the house with us tonight, so make sure you’re nice. We don’t get a choice.”
“But, Daddy!” The other one looks to me with a wrinkled nose, then she turns back to the chubby girl. “Why do we have to make friends with these people? They’re awwwful .” She drags the sound out and makes me regret thinking that just because they were kids, they would be cool.
“Because this is the cost of business.” He steps back without a single word for the third girl. Taking the door handle, his dark eyes stop and meet mine. “Play nice. If you’re an asshole to my girls, you’ll see the back of my hand. Do you understand?”
“Umm… yessir.” I jump when he slams the door closed, then I turn back to the sour-sisters and study them the way they study me.
My mom taught me to mind my manners, she especially taught me to mind my manners around the female kind, but these girls act like I taste of lemons. “What’s your fuckin’ problem?”
Gasp ! Shock ! They can’t believe someone would speak to them in such a way.
“How dare you speak to us like that?” Sour-sister number one snaps. “You’re a dirty, poor, street filth boy who doesn’t belong here.”
I lift a brow and chuckle. They knew I was coming today, and they know I’m poor. “Did you practice that speech in the mirror this morning, or was that something you thought up on the fly?”
Sour-sister number two curls her lip and takes a step back. “ Peasant . That’s what you are.”
“Yeah?” My eyes drift to the chubby girl to see whose side she’s on, then I look back to the elite squad. “If I’m a peasant, then what does that make you?”
“Worthy,” Sour-sister number one sneers. “We’re classy and demand respect.”
“And her?” I nod to the chubby girl. “How does she fit in?”
“She’s part of the help , just like you.
” Sour-sister number two looks over her shoulder and glowers.
“She needs to learn her place. Her daddy wears a badge; big effing deal. Our daddy owns this club. He owns all of this.” She lifts her hands as though to command her army of seahorses to swim up from the depths of the ocean or something.
I’m going to call her Ursula. “This is our empire, and you’re nothing but a bastard child with a whore for a mother. ”