Eavesdropping, I heard Troy growl, “What the fuck?” from the doorway. I liked how he said the word ‘fuck.’ The sound of it gave me whiplash, and the skin on my arms turned all funny. “Maria has barely been gone for three weeks, and you’re already pulling shady shit.”

Grandma Maria passed away in her sleep less than a month ago. I was the one who’d found her. Cat had been out all night, “working.” I’d held Grams and cried until I couldn’t open my eyes anymore. When Cat finally got home, with whiskey breath and smudged makeup, she told me it was all my fault.

That Grams was too tired of my bullshit and decided to bail.

“Can’t blame her for kickin’ the bucket, kid. I’d do the same if I could!”

I packed my duffel bag that same morning and hid it under my bed.

I’d known Cat wasn’t going to keep me.

“First of all, watch your mouth. I’m still grieving. I lost my mother unexpectedly, you know,” Catalina huffed.

“Tough shit. Sam never had his mother to begin with.” Troy’s voice made the walls rattle, even when he spoke calmly.

“The boy is untamable. Dumb as a brick and as aggressive as a stray dog. Me sticking around ain’t gonna help. It’s only a matter of time before he lands in juvie,” my mother spat. “He’s a monster.”

That was her nickname for me. Monster.

The Monster did this.

The Monster did that.

“Look, I don’t care what you and your perfect little wife think. It’s just too much responsibility. I’m out. I can’t send him to therapy and shit like that. I’m not made out of money.” Catalina stubbed her heel on the floor. I heard her rummaging through her Chanel bag for her cigarettes. She wasn’t gonna find them. I smoked half the pack in the backyard while she was getting high in her bedroom. The rest were in my bag.

“If money is an issue—” Sparrow started.

“Bitch, please,” Cat cut into her words viciously, spluttering. “Keep your money. And I hope you are not dumb enough to think you’re better than me, with all the help you’re getting from your husband and harem of nannies and tutors. Sam’s the spawn of the Devil. I can’t do this alone.”

“You’re not doing this alone,” Troy ground out. “We have shared custody of him, idiot.”

Fire blazed in my chest. I didn’t know Sparrow and Troy had legal custody over me. I didn’t know what it meant, but it sounded important.

“Either you take him or I drop him off at an orphanage,” Cat yawned.

In a way, I was relieved. I always knew once Grams died, Catalina would get rid of me. I spent the last few weeks worrying she’d set the house on fire with me in it to get insurance money or something. At least I was still alive.

I knew my mother didn’t love me. She never looked at me. When she did, she told me I reminded her of him.

“Same Edward Cullen hair. Same dead, gray eyes.”

Him was my late father, Brock Greystone. Before he died, he was employed by Troy Brennan. Brock Greystone was weak and pathetic and a weasel. A rat. Everyone said so. Grams, Cat, Troy.

My worst nightmare was becoming like him, which was why Catalina always told me I was so much like him.

Then there was Uncle Troy. I knew he was a bad man, but he was an honorable one, too.

The wiseguys down my block said he had blood on his hands.

That he threatened, tortured, and killed people.

Nobody messed with Troy. Nobody kicked him out of the house or yelled at him or told him he was their worst mistake. And he had that thing about him, like … like he was made out of marble. Sometimes I looked at his chest and was surprised to see it moved.

I wanted to be him so much that when I thought about it my bones began to hurt.

His existence just seemed louder than anyone else’s.

Whenever Uncle Troy disappeared in the middle of the night, he always came back bruised and disheveled. He’d bring dunks and ignore the fact he smelled of gunpowder and blood. He would tell us bad jokes at the table while we ate, and to make sure Sailor wasn’t scared anymore, he’d tell her he saw the monster family that lived in her closet move out.

One time he bled all over a donut, and Sailor had eaten it because she thought it was Christmas frosting. Aunt Sparrow was close to nuclear explosion. She’d chased him around the kitchen with a broomstick while Sail and I giggled, swatting it about and actually catching his ear twice. When she finally caught him (only because he let her), he captured both her wrists and lowered her to the floor and kissed her hard on the mouth. I thought I saw some tongue, too, but then she swatted his chest and giggled.

Everyone was so happy and laughed so much, Sailor had an accident, and she never had accidents anymore.

But then I’d felt my chest tighten because I knew they’d send me back to Cat later that afternoon. It reminded me I wasn’t really a part of their family.

It was the only good moment I had. I’d play it over and over, lying in my bed, every time I heard Cat’s bedsprings whine under the weight of a stranger.

“We’ll take him,” Sparrow announced coldly. “Off you go. We’ll send you the paperwork as soon as our lawyer drafts the documents.”

My chest filled with something warm just then. Something I’d never felt before. I couldn’t stop it. It felt good. Hope? Opportunity? I couldn’t put a name on it.

“Red,” Troy breathed his wife’s nickname.

And just like that, my insides turned cold again. He didn’t want to adopt me. Why would he? They already had one perfect daughter. Sailor was cute and funny and normal. She didn’t get into fights, hadn’t been expelled three times, and definitely hadn’t broken six bones in her body doing dangerous shit because pain reminded her she was still alive.

I wasn’t an idiot. I knew where I was headed—the streets. Kids like me didn’t get adopted. They got into trouble.

“No,” Sparrow snapped at him. “I’ve made up my mind.”

Nobody spoke for a moment. I got really scared. I wanted to shake Cat and tell her how much I hated her. That she should’ve died instead of Grandma Maria. That she deserved to die. With all her drugs and boyfriends and rehab trips.

I never told anyone how she used to give me shots of rum to make me sleep. Whenever Troy or Sparrow paid us surprise visits, she’d rub white powder on my gums to wake me up. She’d curse under her breath, threatening to burn me if I didn’t wake up.

I was seven when I realized I was an addict.

If I didn’t get the white powder daily, I shook and sweated and screamed into my pillow until I ran out of energy and passed out.

I was eight when I kicked the habit.

I’d just refused to let her give me rum or powder. Went crazy every time she came near me with that stuff. Once, I bit Cat’s arm so bad a part of her skin stayed in my mouth, salty and metallic and hard against my teeth.

She never tried again after that.

“You’re fucking lucky my wife is stubborn as hell,” Troy hissed. “We’ll take Sam, but there will be stipulations—and many of them.”

“Shocker,” Cat bit out. “Let’s hear them.”

“You’ll hand him over and sign all the legal paperwork, no negotiations and without asking for a penny.”