Chapter 1

Before the words had even faded, the bald kingpin, Drake Stone, whacked Hanks over the head with a rolled-up magazine.

"How many times do I gotta tell ya? No swearing in front of the kid!"

Drake crouched down so that he could be eye-level with me.

I could see the jagged scar running along his jawline, and my own reflection trapped inside his pupils.

"Kid, who taught you how to talk like that?"

I shook my head, fighting down the cold wave of terror, and answered word by word. "I taught myself."

He looked me up and down, his skeptical gaze sweeping over my painfully thin arms.

"Your folks beat you?"

I shook my head.

They didn't beat me. They just acted like I didn't exist.

There was never a bowl set for me at the dinner table. My face wasn't in a single family photo.

When I got sick, nobody cared.

Once, I spiked a fever of 104 degrees and couldn't even crawl out of bed.

My mother glanced at me once and snorted. "Stop faking. You're just trying to get out of chores."

Then she took my sister out shopping.

I spent three days flat on my back before my body fought it off on its own.

When Drake and his men broke in to collect, I was curled up in the corner, hiding behind a book.

It was a civil law textbook that I had fished out of a dumpster.

The cover was torn to shreds, so I taped it back together with packing tape.

I had read the pages so many times that I could recite them from memory.

A few feet away, my parents and Tiana were frantically stuffing their suitcases.

Ever since I could remember, they had spent their days screaming at each other, smashing furniture, and then vanishing with Tiana.

Right before every disappearance, they would say the exact same thing.

“She doesn't have Tiana's charm. Dragging her along is just a headache.”

So every single time, I was the one left behind.

Whenever they crawled back after blowing their money elsewhere, they would look at me with this strange, heavy sigh.

It took me years to figure out what that look meant.

It was disappointing.

Disappointed that I was still alive and well, and disappointed that they were stuck feeding another mouth.

I lifted my chin and met Drake's eyes.

They were vicious eyes, but I had seen worse.

My father's eyes after a losing streak, looking at me like I was rotting trash.

"My parents have been drowning in debt for over a decade. The house was always buried in legal notices. I didn't have anything else to do, so I read them."

A moldy piece of bread and a law book, that was how every day passed.

I paused, swallowing hard, and added, "I learned to read when I was three."

I wasn't bragging.

My parents had dumped me with these dangerous men. If I couldn't prove I was useful, I was going to be sold off.

"How old are you?"

"Twelve."

Drake stared at me, suspicion narrowing his eyes.

The motion-activated light in the hallway flickered, died, and clicked back on. He stood up and waved a hand.

"Hanks, go grab every single I.O.U. we've got. Let's give the big-shot lawyer here a real show."

I crouched there until my legs went completely numb.

Finally, Hanks dragged out a heavy cardboard box and dumped it with a dull thud.

It was packed to the brim with promissory notes, predatory contracts, and bank transfer slips, all tangled together in a chaotic mess.

Drake slapped the top of the box and gave me a sharp, challenging grin.

"All right, counselor. Show us what you're made of.”