Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Jayda stuffed a backpack like she was a fugitive. Which, technically she wasn’t, but after introducing twelve thousand volts of electricity into a man with a gun and menacing scar, self-defense skills offered little comfort.
She yanked open her closet and grabbed more items: a thick sweater, a pair of jeans, and—because life was cruel—her last pair of clean socks with tiny candy canes on them.
She shoved them into her backpack, ignoring the neat pile of casebooks on her desk, the ones she was supposed to have been reviewing last night for today’s criminal law exam.
Instead, she stayed up all night on guard in case she had an unwanted visitor.
Thankfully, “Scar” hadn’t found out where she lived.
See, Michael? I’m thankful for something.
All night long, Michael’s voice rang in her ears from their brief phone call: You could at least be thankful.
Her grip tightened on the sweater.
Thankful. For what, exactly? For the years of polite but uncomfortable dinners at the Blair house?
For the way Michael always looked at her like she’d stolen a place at the table that didn’t belong to her?
For being reminded at every opportunity that she was the charity case in a family of overachievers?
And yet—ugh—there was the guilt. A small, irritating, traitorous voice in her head whispered that maybe she had been standoffish, maybe Ginny Blair really had meant well, maybe Michael wasn’t entirely wrong.
Jayda shoved the thought away. She didn’t have the capacity for emotional self-examination when she was possibly on a mobster’s hit list.
She needed to find out who the guy was.
Her gaze slid to her phone, lying face-down on the desk.
She could call the police. She could tell them about the man in the library, about how he chased her with a gun after she’d bolted.
She could even give them a decent description—black leather coat, snake tattoo on the neck, scar beneath eyes that said he enjoyed hurting things.
But the idea curdled in her stomach. Growing up in the system had left her with a healthy skepticism of authority.
The cops had never been on her side—not when her mother got sick, not when the landlord evicted them from the tiny apartment, not when Child Protective Services showed up two weeks after the funeral to split her from the only neighbors who’d cared.
The cops couldn’t protect her now. They’d take a report, maybe run a patrol past the library, and that would be the end.
Meanwhile, Jayda knew that man was coming for her…for the pictures and documents she’d swiped from the floor. Jayda grabbed them and added them to her bailout bag. For whatever reason, he wanted them, and Jayda didn’t think it was for reuniting with an old friend.
Who was the woman to him? Was she in danger? In need of protection?
Jayda couldn’t worry about her right now.
Not when Jayda’s days in family law hadn’t started yet—and they wouldn’t if she didn’t take her final exam.
Shaking off the image of the woman in the picture, Jayda’s mind returned to the test awaiting her.
All the late nights, the lectures she’d forced herself to sit through despite exhaustion, the endless outlines and flashcards—it all came down to this week.
If she failed the final, she might as well drop out.
Law school didn’t forgive that kind of stumble.
A poor grade could end her future acceptance at a prestigious law firm.
She needed to take the exam, get a good grade, and get out of town.
But to where?
If she didn’t get on that train and go west, where else could she go? And if she boarded that train, was she walking right into another fiasco of the Ginny Blair kind?
Jayda grabbed her heaviest winter coat—a puffy black monstrosity that could double as personal body armor—and looped a wool scarf around her neck three times. Then sunglasses. She caught sight of herself in the mirror and almost laughed.
“I look like an incognito snowman,” she muttered.
But overkill was better than being killed.
She zipped the coat, slung the backpack over her shoulders, and headed out.
Careful to keep her head down, she made her way to her classroom building.
Her every step was focused and moving quickly.
Her boots shuffled through the fresh snow as she took the sidewalk toward the brick structure ahead.
She was almost there…until she reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up.
Three men in dark jackets stood by the front doors, scanning every student who approached. One of them—Scar—took a step forward.
Her heart lurched.
She pivoted hard, pretending to check her phone, then ducked down the side street. She kept walking until she was three blocks away, lungs tight, sweat prickling under her coat despite the cold.
No exam today. No passing grade. No Yale Law degree if she couldn’t make this up—and the odds of that happening were slimmer than her chances of winning the lottery.
A sharp, hollow ache filled her chest. She’d worked too hard, sacrificed too much, to lose it all now.
And then the anger came.
Not the hot, reckless kind. The deep molten kind that burned slowly with the old fury of injustice. She knew it well.
It was the same anger she’d felt at eight years old, watching her mother shrink into a hospital bed, knowing the cancer was winning because the system didn’t care about people like them. Her mother had worked herself to the bone—two jobs, no insurance—until she simply couldn’t anymore.
Jayda watched her mother die and had sworn that one day she’d fight her way back. Law school was supposed to be that way.
She couldn’t let a smug mobster take it from her.
She also couldn’t let him take her life.
Jayda walked faster, checking over her shoulder every block she made it to…
every block that led to New Haven’s train station.
Car tires sloshed wet snow in her path, slowing down her quick pace.
She felt too exposed, waiting to be cut off at every alley.
She pushed on with short, determined breaths.
By the time she reached the station, her breath fogged in the cold air and her calves ached from the stride.
The station loomed ahead, all glass and stone, and she didn’t hesitate.
She bought a ticket for the next train—didn’t care where it went—then darted down the stairs and the long white tiled corridor to the next departing train’s platform.
The train doors stood wide, waiting for her.
She dropped into a seat, her backpack clutched tight to her chest. Only when the train lurched forward did she allow herself to exhale.
The destination scrolled across the overhead screen.
New York City.
Her stomach tightened. Michael—and the rest of the Blairs—would board their ridiculous Polar Express this afternoon, expecting her to join them.
But she was on the run.
Then again, the bad guys would never imagine her walking straight into a family holiday.
Perhaps Jayda could paste on a smile and sing a few songs to make Ginny happy—if it meant she stayed alive.
The platform bustled with the usual mix of exciting chatter from arrivals, but for Michael it might as well have been a stage.
He pasted on a smile while his family gathered near the car assigned to them, their cluster of luggage stacked with Ginny’s usual tidy precision.
His father, Ed, stood tall and robust, scanning the crowd like a man still half-expecting something to go wrong.
His mother, always chipper, stooped near the twins, fastening the zipper on one boy’s jacket while the other darted a few steps away to peek inside the train car.
Michael adjusted the strap of his computer bag over his shoulder and joined them.
“You’re all looking ready for the grand adventure,” he said, letting his voice carry a warmth he didn’t entirely feel.
He was tired already—travel wasn’t leisure for him, not when his mind catalogued every face, every overheard snippet, like notes for a story that might someday matter—and for the one he had to write.
“Michael!” His mother rose and wrapped him in a quick hug. She smelled faintly of her familiar lavender lotion. “I’m so glad you’re here. This will be good for you.”
He nearly laughed. She said it as though a train ride across the country would reset all his bad habits and sort out the stalled state of his career. But he kissed her cheek anyway and squeezed her shoulder.
Uncle Henry was next—round, genial, with a booming laugh already spilling out as though the mere sight of Michael was comedy enough. Aunt Caroline gave Michael a peck on the cheek, her perfume still as cloying as ever.
And then, standing just a step behind them, was Simon.
Michael hadn’t seen his cousin since last Christmas, or was it Thanksgiving?
Thirty years old now, Simon Blair was tall and looked like he’d stepped straight from the glossy pages of some lifestyle magazine—tailored coat, scarf knotted carelessly in that perfect I-don’t-care way that meant he probably spent ten minutes in the mirror perfecting it.
His grin was wide, his teeth blinding, his cologne sharp and expensive.
He clasped Michael’s hand in a shake that turned into a half-hug as if they were brothers instead of blood-related strangers.
“Cousin,” Simon said with theatrical warmth. “Wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Michael offered the same grin he might to a source he didn’t trust. “Good to see you. I didn’t realize you were coming along,” he said, careful to keep his tone light.
“Last minute decision. Decided to join in just this morning,” Simon said breezily, like he was talking about ordering dessert instead of uprooting to spend days locked in a train car with extended family. “But with Darlene gone, I figured—why not? New scenery. Fresh air. Adventure.”