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picturing
Jace…
    “That’s what we need,” he said. “I
can give them what they want.”
    “What do they want?”
    “Come on, Ava. That outlaw wasn’t
in our store for a soda. He was checking the place out.”
    “Really?”
    “I haven’t taught you the true family
business, have I?” Dad snorted and giggled. “Stupid me. Always stupid me.”
    “Family business?”
    “The hustle, Ava. That’s what we’re
here for. The fucking hustle.”
    “Don’t curse,” I said.
    “You need the outlaws to watch you,”
he said. “I can’t protect you. I can’t protect my own daughter.”
    Dad hung his head. When I heard the
first sob echo out of his mouth, I gasped. I hadn’t seen Dad breakdown and cry
since Mom’s funeral. Since then he had been a rock to all of us. Now he was
losing it.
    As Dad cried, I inched forward. I
stealthily put my hand to the whiskey bottle and slid it away. I crouched down
in front of my father. He was a broken man right in that moment. He looked at
me, tears in his eyes.
    “I owe Frank a lot of money,” he
whispered. “He’s going to keep cashing in on me until he gets to you, Ava. That’s
what he wants. You have to be safe.”
    I swallowed hard. I was scared.
Really scared.
    “Me…?”
    Dad shook his head. “I just can’t.
It’s just… you have to get protection. You have to go to Jace. Be with him.
Make sure he keeps saving you. No matter what.”
    His eyes went wide. They were
bloodshot. Drunk with tears and whiskey.
    “I don’t follow…”
    “If Frank comes after me again, he’ll
probably kill me. Then he’ll go for you. But if you’re with those outlaws… yes.
It can work, Ava. This is your only chance.”
    “Tell me what’s really going on.”
    “I can’t,” Dad said. He reached for
the bottle. I hadn ’t pushed it away far enough. “I just can’t. I
miss your mother. I miss her hugs. I miss her smile. I miss her ways… she could
hold it all together. Not me.”
    Dad drank more whiskey and kept
crying.
    I wanted to leave so badly but I
was afraid to go home.
    I would have to spend the night at
Dad’s. But I wouldn’t sleep peacefully. Not a chance in hell.
    Unless …
    “Come on,” I whispered. “You need
to get to sleep right now, Dad. You’re hurt and confused. Sleep all of this
off.”
    I got Dad to his feet.
    He looked me dead in the eyes. “You’re
going to listen to me, Ava. I’m giving you to the outlaw. I’m offering you as a
thank you for what he did. If you don’t listen, I can’t help you. Frank will
kill you. You’ll find out all the secrets… let the outlaw save you again. And
again. Do what he says. Become his.”
    Maybe Dad grew in a world where
women were dealt out as prizes or whatever. And maybe he grew up in a world
where women slaved themselves to their man.
    That wasn’t my world.
    No way in hell.
    Even still … later that
night … I was wide awake, my face blushing, imagining the badass outlaw
Jace telling me everything he wanted me to do to him …
     

 
    chapter eight
     
    (ava)
     
    *THEN*
     
    I was pretending to sleep when I
heard the door softly open. My mother used to come in to the room. She would
shuffle to the bed and kiss my cheek. She would touch my hair and whisper
something in my ear.
    But she couldn’t do that now.
Unless ghosts were real. I didn’t want to believe in ghosts. If I did, and I
got scared, I’d cuddle with my mother. But I couldn’t do that.
    “This is why,” I heard a voice
whisper.
    It was Dad.
    “I know, Jake,” another voice said.
“I know. It’s tough. It’s going to be tough. She’ll grow up into a beautiful
woman. I know it. I can feel it in my heart.”
    “I just have to keep everything
going. That’s all I can do. She can’t know anything, Frank. It all has to be
quiet. I have to move on and be a father now.”
    “The store won’t survive that.”
    “I know,” Dad said. “I know. I’ll
deal with that later. But just take a second and understand that it’s