On the way home, Mark and I celebrated by stopping for milkshakes and fries. He was still talking about all the things he wanted to tell Mom as I pulled the Charger into the driveway behind Brooklyn’s car.

“Hey! Want some fries?” Digging my house key out of my purse, I noticed Brooklyn wasn’t smiling, though she was trying hard to put one on. I pushed open the front door and Mark barreled through. “I’ll be right in,” I said, then turned to Brooklyn. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s about Ryan.”

I grabbed her arm. “Oh my God. He was going to fight. Did something happen to him? Is he hurt?” My heart pounded. I started back down the steps to the car. I had to get to him.

“Ow. No.” She rubbed her arm. “I don’t know if I should even tell you this and I don’t even know if it’s true. My brother heard something.”

A premonition welled up inside of me. I didn’t want to know but I had to know. “Tell me.”

“Gabe said that your mom’s shooting...she wasn’t the target. You were.”

Someone had wanted to kill me? My legs couldn’t hold me up any longer. I sank onto the top step and clutched my purse to my chest like a shield. “But who’d want to shoot me?”

“Chanos.”

“Chanos? I only saw him at the garage. Ryan knows the guy, but why would he want to shoot me?”

“Rumor is that the shooting was retaliation for his brothers taking his drugs.”

Fear raced up and down my spine like a mouse running from a cat. “Your brother has to be mistaken. Ryan would have told me. He wouldn’t have kept something like this from me.” The minute I said the words, I knew that I was wrong. “I have to go see him. I need him to look me in the eye and tell me that he didn’t know the person who did this.” I put my hand up to my trembling lips.

“I’m sorry, Tana.”

“Could you stay with Mark?”

“No problem.”

I jumped back into the Charger and took off, barely able to see through the tears, barely able to breathe. Please, let it be a mistake. Please don’t let Ryan have known and kept it from me. Please.

*

RYAN

Abraham hadn’t said two words to me since I’d walked in this morning after he’d seen my scraped knuckles. Finally, when I couldn’t take the silence any longer, I threw down the rag and walked away from the Taurus I’d been working on. Pushing open the door of his office, I said, “Go ahead and say it.”

Swiveling around in his chair, he stared through the window across the parking lot for a second. I knew he’d talk once he gathered his thoughts, so I waited. He turned back to face me and his dark eyes searched my face before he said softly, “I don’t have anything to say. Is there something you want to say to me?”

“I’m only doing them for a week.” I rubbed the back of my knuckles. “And it’s not that I wanted to do it. Tana used her college money to pay the hospital. I can’t let her give up college. It’s her dream.”

Abraham blinked. “I wasn’t asking about the fighting.”

“Well, then what?”

He leaned back. “Your friend Chanos came to see me after you left yesterday.”

My face tightened. “He’s not my friend.”

“He sure talked like he was. Telling me that I didn’t have to worry about security, that his crew was going to make sure the garage was off limits.”

Shit.

He rose and hit my arm with the back of his hand. “SB. Southtown Brothers. That’s him, too?”

I nodded.

“I thought so.” His eyes sparked with what looked like disappointment. “You said you were out.”

“I was.”

“Are you back in?”

“Not yet.”

He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “When?”

“Saturday.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“No. This is me paying for past mistakes so Chanos won’t hurt...forget it.” I swallowed hard and began unzipping my overalls. “I understand. You don’t want me around.”

“You take those overalls off, son, and you’re fired.”

I stopped. “You’re not firing me?”

“For what? Being part of something you don’t want to be a part of? Do you think you’re the only man who ever crossed a line to protect someone he loved?” He looked out through the open garage doors at the sound of a car pulling up in front of the garage.

I’d know that engine anywhere. I walked out into the bay in time to see Tana climb from the Charger. A tearful Tana. She slammed the door behind her and crossed her arms giving me the hardest look she’d ever given me. “Brooklyn told me something but I’m asking you to tell me the rumors are lies. Please tell me that you didn’t know who was behind my mother’s shooting.”

I started toward her, knowing the end of us was here, knowing I had to let her go but I hadn’t thought it would come this soon.

She backed away with her hand up. “Stop. Answer me. Do you know who shot my mother?”

“I have a pretty good idea.”

“Did you know before they shot her that it was going to happen?”

“What?”

“Did you?”

I could feel the burn spread through my body that she would think that way. Folding my arms across my chest, I stared at her, letting her think what she wanted.

“You knew things about my mother getting hurt that you didn’t share. You probably didn’t tell the detectives working on the case either.”

“They never would have pinned it on him.”

“And you know this because of your days on the street, right? Good old, Ryan. Keeping everyone at arm’s length. You should have told me. How am I supposed to ever trust you again?”

I’d known the break between us had to happen but I hadn’t expected to feel like I was being ripped in two. “What do you want me to say, Tana?”

“You knew about it.” She said it like she was in shock, then captured a strand of hair and put it behind her ear. Her T-shirt raised a little and I could see the mark where my lips had been on her abdomen. “You have so many secrets, Ryan. I don’t think I can handle knowing that you kept information about my mom’s shooting from me.” I let her work though it in her mind for a few minutes, then she demanded, “I need some answers about everything from what happened with my mom to why you’re fighting for money.”

I debated for half a second then decided to at least give her this so that maybe someday she would realize that it wasn’t that I hadn’t cared. I didn’t ever want her to think she wasn’t enough. “It’s for your college tuition.”

“I don’t want it.”

I took another step closer. “I won’t let you give up on your dream.”

“I don’t want money you earned because you spilled someone else’s blood.”

“It’s not like that.” A customer pulled into the parking lot. I glanced at the truck and said, “We’ll finish talking about this tonight.” Tonight, I would tell her we were done, that I couldn’t even be her friend anymore. I would make it swift and I would make it brutal so that she never came around again.

“No. By not telling me what you knew about mom, you lied by omission and I can’t stand to even look at you. Your things will be on the porch when you pick up your car. Don’t bother to knock on the door and don’t call me.” She wouldn’t look at me as she climbed into the car and backed from the parking lot.

From behind me, Abraham said. “Ryan, can you file that paperwork on my desk? I’ll take care of this customer.”

My heart exploding, I went into the office and sat in his chair. There was no paperwork. That was simply a phrase Abraham used in front of a customer when he wanted to talk to me.

A few minutes later, he walked in, shut the door behind him and said, “I heard the conversation with her. Start from the beginning and tell me the whole story.”

I didn’t leave anything out and by the time I was through, Abraham was pacing the small space. He’d listened wordlessly until I was through.

“You think Chanos is going to keep his word to leave everyone alone?”