Chapter 2

Drake and his men were playing cards in the living room.

Three of them hunched around a folding table, chainsmoking.

A thick haze of gray smoke hung heavy in the air.

I sat in the corner under the dim light, sorting through the boxes file by file.

Mid-game, the youngest guy, Ash Lake, glanced over at me. "Come on, Drake. What can a kid possibly figure out?"

Hanks nodded in agreement. "She's been sitting there for two hours without moving an inch."

I didn't dare move.

I knew what happened to abandoned kids.

There was a boy two years older than me whose parents had vanished, leaving him to sleep beside a public dumpster.

His eyes had gone completely hollow, like two empty holes in his face.

Drake didn't say a word. He just slapped a card down on the table.

The moment he finished his move, I laid the final file down.

"I'm done."

Every head snapped in my direction.

I walked over to the folding table. They automatically shifted to make space.

The table was littered with cigarette ash and empty beer cans. I pushed them aside to clear a small patch.

I pointed to the first case.

"Two years ago, your guys told a debtor you’d ruin him if he didn't pay. That got classified as criminal intimidation.

“But if you had said, 'We will pursue this legally if you fail to pay,' it becomes a lawful collection notice."

Hanks's jaw dropped. It stayed open.

I pointed to the next file.

"Hauling away the debtor's fridge and TV was flagged as grand larceny. But if you had gotten the debtor to sign a voluntary asset-transfer agreement right then and there, it would have just been a mutual civil contract."

I kept going. "Throwing paint? Illegal, but it's just property damage. Offer to pay for the cleanup, apologize, and get them to sign a release.

"Last September was the worst one. The fight resulted in a second-degree assault charge. But the victim threw the first punch.

“You should've argued for excessive self-defense instead of intentional battery. Those two charges carry a three-year difference in prison time."

The room went dead silent.

Drake leaned back in his chair, arms crossed.

The skeptical sneer on his face had vanished, replaced by hard focus.

"Damn," muttered Ash, the young guy, "This kid actually makes sense."

Suddenly, Ash scooped me right up off the floor and inspected me like a weird specimen.

"You're only twelve? What are you, some kind of freak genius?"

I flailed, my arms and legs kicking wildly in panic.

My face burned hot red.

Growing up, nobody had ever picked me up.

I hated the dizzy feeling of being off the ground.

Terror spiked through my chest.

Drake dragged hard on his cigarette, then slammed the flat of his hand against the back of Ash's head.

"Hands to yourself, idiot. Didn't your mother teach you basic manners?"

Drake stood up, walked right over to me, and crouched down.

It was the second time tonight he had dropped to my eye level.

"Counselor," he said softly. "You stick with me, and I'll pay for your schooling. You only have to do one thing: teach us how to survive legally."

"What's in it for me?"

Drake blinked.

Nobody had ever tried to cut a deal with him before. The corners of his mouth twitched in surprise.

"You're a sharp one. Way smarter than your folks.

"Every penny we recover through your loopholes, you get thirty percent.

“On top of that, I'm renting you an apartment. Real bed, real desk, a study lamp, and a window facing south."

A window facing south.

Those four words hooked deep into my brain.

No matter how many times my family had moved over the years, my sister always got the master bedroom.

A canopy bed with pink frilly curtains.

Whenever the afternoon sun spilled across her sheets, she would dance around in a princess dress, looking like something out of a fairytale.

My room was always a junk closet.

Pitch dark, freezing in the winter, and suffocating in the summer.

Once, when I was shaking from a chill, I crawled out and crouched by her door just to feel a sliver of warmth.

My sister woke up in the middle of the night, shrieked, and accused me of trying to haunt her.

After that, I stopped wanting her room.

"Okay."

Drake held out his hand.

It was massive, with thick, calloused knuckles and jagged white scars crisscrossing the back.

I slid my small, cold hand into his.

He gave it a firm shake, let go, and stood tall.

"Hanks, get her school transfer sorted tomorrow. Enroll her in the best academy in the city."

Hanks rubbed his eyes, his voice thick. "Got it, boss."

"Ash, go buy her a proper backpack. The expensive kind with good padding."

Ash grinned wide. "You got it!"

"Starting today," Drake swept his gaze over the room, "she's our chief advisor. Anyone who disrespects her answers to me.”