91 A car, a knife, and a hair

**Date = 8 August**
**Place = San Francisco (Black Pit)**

**POV - Enrique**

“I need some food,” Jackson mutters like he’s issuing a court order, not stating a basic human need. His voice is low, sharp, and tinged with that ever-present irritation that makes you want to punch him or feed him. Probably both.

“Thank heaven,” Miguel exhales dramatically two steps behind us, throwing his head back like he’s just crossed a desert. “I thought I’m never tasting food again.”

Poor bastard. Being my twin’s unofficial emotional support minion must be exhausting. And they’re the same flavor of broody, which means any day now they’ll either start a bromance podcast or feature in a crime documentary titled ‘Deadly Men With Even Deadlier Silences’.

But he’s right. I’m starving. My stomach is eating itself.

The smell hits us before we reach the entrance — fresh-baked bread still warm from the oven, garlic butter melting into a sinful substance, and something thick and meaty that smells so good it could persuade a man to confess to crimes he didn’t commit. It’s the kind of smell that could end wars or start them, depending on who’s hungry. My mouth waters like I’m Pavlov’s forgotten experiment.

“Did you know Captain David went to school with Dad?” I ask lightly, watching Jackson’s face for tells.

He frowns like it’s not worth a full breath, not offering his full attention. “Hmm. He was one of Dad’s best friends. Helped each other out back then.”

Well. That’s news. And like everything else in our family history, it drops into my mental file labeled We-Will-Absolutely-Circle-Back-To-This-Shit-Later.

But before I can push, Jackson halts in the doorway. His jaw goes stone-hard. His eyes lock instantly on Mathias, who sits at the end of the long table sipping coffee like he’s waiting to be executed. Mathias gives a tiny guilty shrug.

“Fuck,” Jackson mutters, and then storms into the kitchen like he owns the entire continent— and maybe part of the ocean.

The kitchen girls exchange one look — and as if following a silent order, they glide out with soft giggles. One tucks a stray curl behind her ear and sends us a cheeky air kiss — another wipes her hands on her apron as if she’s preparing for mischief elsewhere. They leave with a warm little storm of charm and femininity trailing after them.

“You still here?” Jackson says to Sky, eyebrows raised like he knew she would be here, but is still surprised she is. “You just fucking never listen.”

Sky doesn’t even look up as she labels another spoon of broth. “A girl has to eat.”

And something wild happens. Jackson’s smile unfurls, slow and fierce, unguarded, like something dark finally tamed.

Not much — just a ghost of one — but enough to prove the man has facial muscles that can do more than scowl. Enough warmth to make everyone at the table pause like they’ve witnessed an eclipse.

Even his eyes twinkle like he forgot he’s supposed to be scary. Like she’s the one quiet happiness he gets to keep.

I glance around. But all eyes — Logan, Damion, the guards — are fixed on Sky.

Sky-Lee.

Whom I suddenly realize is the girl from the pier. The girl from the hospital elevator. The girl who made Logan choke on his own breath.

Logan’s eyes widen so far they might detach. He realizes it, too.

It’s official. The universe is messing with us.

And she is beautiful — stupidly beautiful. The kind that hurts to look at because she’s equal parts soft and sharp, danger wrapped in honey, demon and angel.

We stand there like stunned goldfish, the three of us in a row — Logan, Damion, and me —bug-eyed, brains empty, systems failing.

“If you’re all done drooling,” Mel snaps, rubbing her pregnant lower back like she’s eighty-five, “maybe you can sit down. And if you’re good, Rosa might even feed you.”

Jackson wordlessly smacks Logan upside the head. Logan blinks like he just woke from hypnosis.

I open my mouth to almost defend myself — because technically I wasn’t drooling — but honesty is a bitch and I’m not blind, so I just flop onto the bench beside Aria and give her my most innocently loyal you’re-my-one-and-only look.

“Yeah, sit down,” Sky adds, waving her spoon. “You want to taste this. The food is insane.”

“You cleaned out my kitchen,” Rosa moans, though her eyes are sparkling like she loves the chaos.

Sky shrugs innocently. “Blame your rolls.”

Damion saunters over with a grin. “I think you eat more than this little piglet of mine.” He leans down and kisses Mel’s head, then eyes the basket of rolls like he’s calculating theft. “Save some for the rest of humanity.”

“Get in line, peasant,” Sky fires back. My twin sits down, and another smile slips out slow — the kind a man wears only when he’s looking at someone he’d burn the world for. And burn the world he will.

And just like that — click. Something shifts.

The awkwardness, the tension, the gender-whiplash confusion — gone. Sky slides into our rhythm as if she’s always been part of it. As if she was always meant to be here.

“Unreal,” I mumble. “You guys have to compete with carbs. Thank God my girl chooses me over food. She eats like a bird.”

“Which one … a swallow or a vulture?” River speaks up, stringing in some grapes like a hungry little monkey.

“Doesn’t matter … still a bird,” I say.

Rosa throws us a mock glare but starts dishing bowls anyway.

Aria nudges me with her shoulder. I kiss the top of her head because she smells like peaches and belongs between my ribs.

And suddenly, surrounded by warmth and chatter and family and food, I know exactly how this chapter begins.

With all of us here.

Together. Hungry. Healing. And completely unprepared for whatever the hell happens next.

The kitchen is just like I remember — loud, golden, full of clatter, and smells that make your stomach do cartwheels.

Even our table is still there here — same corner, same wood — the grain worn smooth by years of small fingers, of hiding, of waiting. We used to sneak in, escape under that table after being tortured. After being broken. Hungry and hurt. Hoping to fill both our empty tummies and even emptier souls with something warm and hearty.

Rosa would never give us up — never … not once — and secretly passed bowls of warm food in silence. That was her rebellion. Her quiet, holy defiance. For an hour or two at a time, it was our fortress. But we couldn’t hide there forever.

I blink away the memory and join the guys who are now double-fisting slices of bread like they’re preparing for a famine. Jackson is still grinning the way a man does when his brain short-circuits and his heart forgets it’s supposed to be emotionally constipated.

I notice the girls are way too quiet for the likes of them. Their faces are too stiff, too solemn for a food raid. Something’s off.

“What’s up with you lot?” I ask.

“Sky is sulking because she is dead, Aria worries about wolves in sunglasses, and Mel’s vagina hurts,” River deadbeats it from the side like she’s reading the apocalypse off a whiteboard.

Jackson, without missing a beat, pops a grape in his mouth and glares at Damion. “Have you tried applying ice and telling it to calm down?”

Damion chokes on his orange juice. “Why the hell would you ask me that?”

Jackson shrugs. “You broke her. Fix her.”

“I didn’t BREAK her,” Damion protests, immediately reddening.

“Mm-hm,” I hum, grabbing the bowl of cherries. “I’ve seen the way she limps. That’s not from normal sex, darling.”

Mel lifts a kitchen towel and throws it into my face. “Stop discussing my vagina like it’s public property.” The towel falls harmlessly onto my lap. I just grin, unabashed.

“I’m sorry,” I say sweetly, biting into a cherry. “I forgot you’re emotionally fragile and extremely lactose intolerant at the moment.”

River sighs. “You people need therapy. Or a tranquilizer dart.”

Jackson nods. “Preferably both.”

“You people, INCLUDES YOU,” Sky chastises my brother. He sends her an air kiss, complete with the over-the-top pucker and a wink that can melt glass, like he’s mocking the entire concept of affection.

“That’s all the intimacy you get today,” he mutters. “Use it wisely.”

Sky doesn’t miss a beat. She stares at him like he just sneezed on her soul.

“Oh, too bad. I thought that I would sage you and then use you, Sharky.”

I catch the twitch at the corner of my twin’s mouth, the way his eyes darken for a fraction of a second. It is the look someone gets when a thought’s too dirty to share, but too tempting to dismiss.

So instead he snorts, a sharp, rattling sound that makes the edge of the room twitch. “Better burn a whole fucking forest, then.”

His voice carries that familiar black humor, the kind that masks the way his chest feels heavy, like he’s carrying every dangerous thought he’s ever had in a backpack strapped to his spine.

River scrunches up her nose, tiny but ferocious. “Just promise you won’t torch my sister again, or I’m sending the forest spirits after you.” Her words sound playful, but her eyes are serious, dangerously serious — the way kids can be when they’re trying to protect something they love.

“I won’t … unless she asks nicely,” Jackson smirks.

Sky sighs, as if she’s considering her life choices, dragging her fingers through the last remnants of pastry crumbs on the table, licking them up with a slow, deliberate lick that makes your stomach twist. “Heard the police came by. Did they catch the driver?”

Her voice slices through the tension, like a cold draft sneaking under the door. She shifts the topic as if that alone could chase the ghosts away.

Mel’s chewing slows. River tears off another piece of bread with little grace, crumbs scattering like little stars over the floor. Aria freezes mid-bite, butter hanging from the corner of her lips.

I want to lick it. But I don’t.

“Not yet,” I say, my voice tighter than I want it to be. “They slipped away.” I glare at where Rosa’s three sons are gobbling up food at the end of the table, as if this meal has to fill up all reserves to last a while.

“Not my fault,” Mathias mutters, swinging his coffee cup. “They were expecting it. Planned it. Pulled me into a trap. And we had no backup.”

He’s right. These people are not dumb. They had a pre-planned escape.

He swallows hard, then adds, almost under his breath — “I did see her, though. Got out of the car after we were blocked by the trucks … even waved at me. Blonde. Red shoes. And then the shooting started.”

Aria snorts, a sharp laugh that’s more disbelief than humor. “So it WAS Cindy.”

“Told you,” River chimes, mouth dangerously full, like she’s challenging anyone to argue with her.

“Fock me blind,” Sky whispers, voice trembling with something between fury and exhaustion. “That woman is really starting to piss off all the voices in my head.”

Jackson smirks, that dangerous, infuriating smirk, and slides a hand possessively onto her thigh. It looks unnatural — like a lion hugging a squirrel — but there’s an odd tenderness there too. I can’t decide if it makes me want to laugh or shiver.

“Graham was in the car too,” Mathias adds. “Just sat there, staring.” It always seems to lead back to him. Every time.

“We need to find that fucker,” I add, trying to steady my own nerves. “Or Cindy. Or even that Chloe bitch.”

My sister pales, her face ghostly against the warm kitchen light. Damion slides his hand over hers, squeezing it, grounding her like a lifeline tossed into stormy water.

“But we still have nothing?” Aria’s fingers tremble as she butters my bread by accident. Cute, innocent, and heartbreaking all at once. I let her, because right now, she needs normal.

“They found the car,” Axel says. “Parked in Graham’s garage.” Blood still in tack. But they don’t need to know that.

“They found some stuff, too,” Jackson says, already annoyed again. Maybe because his guys couldn’t catch the driver. Maybe because things could have been so much worse.

“What stuff?” Mel asks.

“Yeah, speak up, Murkles,” Sky grins up into Jackson’s face, “Or should I drag it out of you?” She’s intentionally pushing his buttons. Miguel and his brothers snort softly in their sleeves.

“Murkles?” River stops eating and glares at her sister as if Sky lost her mind in the hospital.

“Yeah, dark and moody, but sounds like something you’d want to kiss,” Sky winks at her.

Jackson looks at her as if deciding whether to eat her or kill her. Or something else entirely.

“It sounds gay,” Damion gives his opinion. He’s right.

“Well, I also call him Cockletoes, Pookidoodle, and Croonky, if you must know.” Jackson looks as if he’s going to evaporate. The rest are all laughing. It’s rare to see him flustered. Gotta engage when it happens.

“The stuff,” Mel brings us back to the point. I look at my sister. Her tummy is clearly visible through Damion’s huge rock band shirt. Her eyes are dull and red from crying. Her face is pale.

Rosa finally drops the bowls of food in front of us. It smells divine. I stretch out to grab some salt. Jackson is already attacking his stew with a buttered bun. He points at Miguel, who is trying to cut some bread, to take over. Miguel sighs and drops the bread on his plate.

“Graham’s DNA is all over the car …” he picks up the thread with the rhythm of someone reciting a court case, “Expected, since it’s his car. Also found a hair.”

“Lucinda’s,” he adds quickly. “And Darren’s fingerprint.” He then dunks the bread in his stew and crams it like it owes him money.

Mel sighs. “She’s dead, and he’s dead, so it doesn’t help.”

Miguel swallows and continues. “The maid said Graham was away for more than a month. Rushed in quickly on the day of the accident with a girl, but hasn’t been home since.”

“Of course it’s Graham again,” Aria mutters.

“I don’t think he’s guilty,” Sky says with eerie calm.

Does she know Graham? Does she know that he’s an asshole?

“How do you know that?” Logan, always the hammer to any nail, narrows his eyes like he’s about to cross-examine the toaster. “Is he your lover or something?”

Jackson snaps his attention toward him — not just a look, but a full-body turn, sharp and predatory — stiffening like Logan just threatened to date his motorcycle.

Logan throws up his hands, all sass and zero shame. “WHAT? It’s a legitimate question.”

“Are YOU in love with him?” Sky fires back without missing a beat.

“No!” Logan snaps, scandalized.

“Exactly,” she deadpans, sinking him like a battleship.

Axel cuts in, ever the diplomat. “He wasn’t driving. But unfortunately, the evidence against him keeps stacking up.”

“It’s circumstantial,” Sky mutters. “I think he’s being framed.” She pauses, then adds with a sigh, “Or he’s just really, really dumb.”

“Can’t it be both?” River mumbles into her cookie.

“It just didn’t sound like him …” Sky declares, eyes distant now, haunted around the edges. “The voice … in the warehouse. It wasn’t his.”

“How do you know?” Logan again.

“Storm … we like to watch the races,” she says with a shrug. “The interviews. I’ve heard Graham talk like a million times.”

“On television,” I point out.

Sky flicks me a glare. “Still counts. And it wasn’t him.”

Damion leans forward with all the intensity of a man pitching a miracle mop at three a.m. “There’s more … they found a knife in the car. Wrapped. With blood on it. Not fresh — a bit degraded.”

That shuts everyone up.

“DNA matches Enrique’s.” Damion’s voice drops. “He’s in the system now, after the transplant.” Yeah, I’m not sure that’s such a good thing.

“It’s mine,” Jackson says, low and lethal. “Same DNA.” He pins Miguel with a dark stare — the kind that can curdle milk. “Fix it. Now.” The man is inhaling his mom’s cooking like he’s got a black hole for a stomach.

“I’ll have it wiped. Relax.” He talks around a forkful of something saucy and excellent as if erasing government records is part of a daily routine.

Mel suddenly gasps, eyes wide and bright with sudden, horrible clarity, like she just remembered a dream she’d buried deep.

“Oh my gosh,” she heaves. “It’s the knife … the one Darren stabbed you with!”

“Guess, Darren hid the knife in the car,” Axel says. “Maybe Graham was also involved in that.”

“Solves that case,” Jackson says, giving a nonchalant shrug.

Aunt Rosa nearly drops the ladle she’s been threatening people with. “You got stabbed, Diabo?” she cries, clutching her rosary like she wants to beat him with it and pray over him at the same time.

“Of course,” Sky throws a hand to her forehead dramatically. “Leave him alone for five minutes, and he ends up leaking from somewhere.”

“Same old, same old,” Rosa mumbles, doing a dramatic Hail Mary, as if this family is a full-time prayer request.

River cleans her mouth with her arm, burps delicately into her sleeve, then rubs her stomach like a satisfied cat. I guess her hole’s filled up at last. Well, for a moment or two at least.

“That Cindy bitch deserves to rot. She killed Kiara. Almost killed Sky,” River sneers, her voice breaking.

A silence falls over the kitchen. The name hangs like incense — sweet, sad, heavy.

Kiara. The light in all our lives. Gone.

Rosa places a hand on Mel’s shoulder. Mel closes her eyes.

Axel finally speaks. “Kiara always said if someone wronged her, she’d make them into stew and serve them to the neighborhood dogs.”

Mel grins, remembering. “She really did. She had a recipe for it in her notes app.”

“Chili of vengeance,” Logan adds. “Low and slow.”

“She was one of the good ones,” he continues, softer than usual. “Real good.”

“Whenever we find Graham or Cindy or Chloe … or whoever, we will make them pay,” Axel says.

“Maybe I should give Graham a Sophie’s choice — come clean, or Daddy burns,” Jackson clips between bites. “Simple.” His spoon clinks against the bowl like punctuation to a threat.

Rosa freezes mid-stir.

Then comes the mom-stare — the one that could stop a riot, or at least make a grown man rethink his entire criminal career.

“Do I need to be worried about you?” she demands, voice low, thick with that particular blend of maternal dread and exasperation only Jackson can summon.

“You should ALWAYS be worried about him,” I say, jabbing a thumb at my brother. “What with all the psychopathic tendencies and such.”

Sky doesn’t even blink. She just lifts a shoulder, almost proud. “Nah. He’s a GOOD psychopath.”

She shoots Jackson a sly look. “But I’m still working on his unhealthy coping mechanisms, his dark sense of humor, —” she gestures vaguely at the rest of us, “— together with his people skills.”

“And failing,” Logan adds helpfully.

Jackson raises a spoon like he’s blessing the table. “Can we all take a moment of silence to acknowledge that despite all the bullshit —” He glances around the kitchen, eyes glittering with mischief, “— I haven’t burned the world.”

A beat. Then he winks at Rosa. “Yet.”

Rosa gasps like he just threatened the Pope. She clutches her rosary tighter, eyes skyward as if filing a formal complaint with heaven itself.

“You’re still a strange lot,” she huffs, shaking her head as she starts to chop some carrots. “A very, very strange lot.”

But her mouth twitches — just a little.

Affection. Exasperation. That weird brand of love this house keeps running on.

“Actually, we’re rather normal,” Damion says.

But he’s wrong.

There’s nothing normal about this group. Hell, even a melodramatic, spicy, live-action Chinese telenovela directed by Quentin Tarantino, and narrated by Martha Stewart, is more normal than us.

But in this kitchen, surrounded by warmth, by memories, by the scent of Rosa’s stew and old wood and garlic … I feel normal. If only for a moment.

Miguel’s phone vibrates on the table, rattling slightly against a coffee spoon. He snatches it up, presses it to his ear, and listens — eyes narrowing, lips parting just a little, but no words come out. Just that heavy, taut silence like the moment before lightning splits the sky.

Then he moves. Fast.

“Jackson,” Miguel says, already standing. His expression is grim, but his eyes are alight with something deadly. “A woman just entered Graham’s home.”

The effect on Jackson is instantaneous. He shoots up from the stool like a thunderclap, shoving it backward with a screech. It topples sideways, but he doesn’t even glance at it. His whole body is already a weapon in motion, all angles and drive and violence waiting to be unleashed.

“Let’s go.”

Miguel manages two more quick bites and grabs some pastries on his way out.

Jackson takes long, lurching strides toward the door, the kind that feel like they’re meant for battlefields, not kitchens. But just as he’s about to vanish through the huge dark wood arch, he stops — halts so abruptly his shoulders jerk — and turns back.

He crosses the floor in two purposeful steps, leans down, and presses a kiss to Sky’s cheek. It’s quick, almost rushed, but tender. Like something he needs to do. A promise, or a goodbye he doesn’t want to say.

“Go rest a bit,” he murmurs, low and deep.

Sky blinks, caught off guard. “I will. I promise.”

He’s already halfway to the door again. “Just one more cup of coffee,” he calls over his shoulder, voice rough, like he’s using humor to steady something else inside him. And then he’s gone — his boots pounding down the hall like war drums.

Damion pushes himself to his feet with a groan. “I think I’m gonna give it a miss,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his face. “Time to tuck my little piggy into bed.”

Mel rolls her eyes. “I am not a piggy.”

“No, angel, not A piggy … MY piggy. Huge difference,” he says with a sleepy grin.

She snorts, but she doesn’t argue.

“And I —,” River announces dramatically, “— am going to find Luke and Lili before they kill each other or start a punk band without me.” She grabs Mel’s hand, her sneakers slapping the tile. They shuffle off together, fingers laced, Mel’s head resting against her lover’s shoulder. The picture of domestic peace in a house full of ghosts.

The rest of us move too, a slow tidal wave behind Jackson. I fall into step beside Axel, trailing the group, my mind still buzzing from everything that’s just been said.

Halfway down the hallway, it hits me. “Crap. I left my phone in the kitchen.” I pivot back. “Wait for me,” I shout at Axel over my shoulder, jogging lightly toward the kitchen, heart still hammering with leftover adrenaline.