Nero’s eyes flutter open. I pull my hand away, sitting back on my heels before he notices anything.

He tries to sit up, and I push him back down.

We talk for a while. More calmly than we’ve ever talked before.

Then he kisses me. Not like he kissed me in the car. That was violent, aggressive, like a punishment. This is the opposite. It’s gentle. Almost tender.

We kiss for so long that I forgot who he is and who I am. I forgot that I swore to myself a hundred times that I would never, never, never let Nero Gallo get a hold of my heart so he could tear it into tiny pieces and stomp on them, like he does to everybody else.

Then his hand brushes over my breast and I gasp, because the feeling of his palm grazing over my nipple is like an electric shock shooting through my body. And he pulls away from me, looking surprised and almost horrified.

Then he leaves.

And I’m alone in my bed for hours, wondering why I let him kiss me. And why he wanted to at all.

The next morning, I feel groggy and my head is thumping. I barely ever drink. Those two beers at Levi’s house didn’t do me any favors.

I stumble out to the kitchen, where Vic is actually out of bed, with his textbooks sprawled across the table, and his nose an inch away from his paper as he scribbles notes.

“What are you doing?” I ask suspiciously.

“I signed up for those AP courses like you said,” Vic says.

He looks humble and apologetic, like he’s trying to make penance with me.

He knows I’ve been shanghaied into selling Molly for Levi Cargill. I haven’t told him about Officer Schultz. Working with the cops is one of the most dangerous things you can do in Old Town. If Vic knew what I was doing, it would only put him in danger.

“What are those notes for?” I ask him.

“Evolutionary Biology,” he says. “It’s all about natural selection and common descent and speciation.”

“Like that stuff with Mendel and the pea plants?” I say.

I vaguely remember filling out a bunch of squares that were supposed to teach us recessive and dominant traits.

“Yeah,” Vic says. “Basically.”

“What are those charts you do for inheritance?” I ask him.

“Punnett Squares,” Vic says.

“I remember those.”

“Well, we covered that in normal biology,” Vic says. “This is a bit more advanced. Look . . .”

He flips the page on his textbook and gestures for me to sit down and read it with him.

“So, I’m reading about epigenetics, which is the modification of gene expression, rather than alteration of the genetic code itself.”

He’s not reading that out of the book. He’s just rattling it off out of his own brain. Vic is so damn smart. That’s why I can’t stand the thought of him throwing his life away on some menial job—or worse, no job at all. Rotting in a prison cell because he made the mistake of trusting a guy like Levi.

“But look here,” he says, pointing. “Here they’re talking about inherited mutations. This one’s on the FOXC2 gene. It’s called distichiasis. It’s the same mutation that Elizabeth Taylor had. It gives you a double row of eyelashes.”

“That’s cool,” I say, trying to remember exactly what Elizabeth Taylor looked like.

“I have it, too!” Vic says proudly.

“What?” I lean in to examine his face.

He does have very thick eyelashes. It made him look like a girl when he was little—especially when we didn’t cut his hair often enough.

“How do you know you have it?” I ask him.

“Cause look—the lashes aren’t just thick. They grow in two lines.”

I look closely at his eyes. It’s true—the lashes grow on top of each other, not just in a single row.

“Is that . . . bad?” I ask him.

“It can cause irritation,” he says. “Not for me, luckily. Distichiasis is really rare. But it’s an autosomal dominant disorder.”

I stare at him blankly.

“Passed from parent to child,” he adds helpfully.

“Did Mom have it?”

Vic frowns. “How should I know?”

I sometimes forget that he doesn’t remember her at all. She never came to visit him, after that night she dropped him off at the house.

I think our dad talked to her sometimes. In fact, I’m almost sure of it, after what Ali said. The only way my mom could have gotten that picture of me is if Dad gave it to her.

Ali said my mom kept it on her mirror. That doesn’t make me feel good.

Actually, it pisses me off. She had no right to look at a picture of me, when she couldn’t be bothered to come see her real, actual daughter, who was still living in the same damn neighborhood as her.

“That’s really cool,” I say to Vic, trying to shake thoughts of our mother out of my head. “Glad to see you studying.”

“I should have time to finish the whole course before the summer’s up,” he tells me.

“That’s great, Vic. I’m proud of you, dude.”

I ruffle his caramel-colored hair, as I stand up from the table.

Vic really is a good-looking kid. He got a lot of our mom’s best features, though he’s more fair.

I try to remember if my mom had thick eyelashes. She had big, dark eyes like me and Vic. But I don’t know if the lashes were anything special.

Actually, much as I hate to admit it, I’ve only ever seen one person with lashes like Vic: Bella Page. And I’ve known her long enough to know she’s had them since we were kids. They’re not extensions like so many girls are getting these days. She’s always had thick, black lashes even when she was a skinny blonde kid . . .

My stomach gives a strange squeeze inside of me.

I saw Bella’s parents once at our high school graduation ceremony. Her mom was slim and blonde, much like Bella. Her father was tall, with a shiny bald head. But he did have one rather striking feature: thick, dark eyebrows and lashes. They made his eyes look oddly feminine in an otherwise masculine face.

That’s just a coincidence, I’m sure.

“Hey Vic,” I say. “How rare is that dis—that mutation?

“I dunno.” He shrugs. “Maybe one in fifty million?”

Well, shit.

That’s a pretty big coincidence.

I’m supposed to be working in the auto bay, but instead I’m downtown, in the financial district.

This is where Bella’s father works. He owns Alliance Bank, on LaSalle Street. Or at least, that’s what Google tells me. It’s confirmed by the company directory located over by the reception desk.

I’m not stupid enough to talk to the haughty-looking receptionist. I know there’s no way on god’s green earth that she’s going to send me up in the elevator to whatever stunning corner office Raymond Page occupies. Bank managers don’t meet with random mechanics who come wandering in off the street.

In fact, the receptionist is already eyeing me suspiciously, based off the fact that I’ve been poking around the lobby for about ten minutes, and I’m dressed in jeans and a hoody, instead of the suit and briefcase apparently required to gain entry to the upper levels.