Greg thought the top of his head was going to explode. He could feel the blood throbbing in his temples. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he spat as he crossed the kitchen, aware he’d already asked his brother that exact question and equally aware he was no more likely to get an answer this time than he had last time.
Derek wheeled to face him. He raised the knife and shouted, “Stop! Right now, Greg. I don’t want to hurt you but I will if I have to.”
And that was when Greg realized Derek was crying, right along with Brenna. Tears rolled out of his bloodshot eyes and down his pasty white face, and he was rail-thin, emaciated, and his whole body was shaking like he’d been caught in a February blizzard with no coat on, and Greg stopped in his tracks, not so much from the force of the threat but out of shock at his little brother’s condition.
They’d last seen each other—when? Six months ago, maybe? Longer? Whenever it was, Derek had appeared in ill health then, too—actively using junkies always do—but even then he’d looked like a fitness buff compared to…this.
They regarded each other for a moment and then Greg said, “What’s going on, Derek? How can you break into your own brother’s home and take a knife to his wife?” He spoke quietly and moved to drape an arm around Brenna but she shoved it away and then slid laterally along the counter, putting more distance between the two brothers, still sniffling and sobbing but not saying a word.
“I told you already,” Derek said. “I’m in big trouble. I need money and I need wheels and I need to get the hell out of Boston.”
“You need a fix.” It was plain as day, but despite that fact Greg expected a furious denial or a barrage of self-serving junkie bullshit from his brother.
To his surprise he got neither. “Yes, I do. Very much. But that’s the least of my problems right now.”
“Jesus, Derek, what did you do?”
He shook his head. “I can’t—”
“GET OUT!” The shouted words exploded out of Brenna like a bomb.
Greg turned toward his wife and raised his hands in a warding-off gesture. He started to answer her, but she hadn’t finished speaking. She lowered her voice so she was no longer screaming, but the words were cold and hard and furious. “Your brother walks in here and threatens me with a knife and you come home and ask him what’s wrong? While I’m bleeding all over the kitchen floor? Get out. Get out and don’t come back.”
“Brenna…”
“Get out. Now.”
“Listen—”
“I said leave.”
6
“I’m sorry about Brenna.” They’d only been inside Greg’s Mustang for maybe five minutes, but up until Derek spoke the silence had been suffocating.
“You’re sorry? About which part, you assaulting her with a fucking knife or her kicking me out of my own house?”
“Both. Everything.”
“Wonderful. Thanks for that. What the hell is going on, Derek? And no bullshit. If you expect to take my money and my car and make a desperate dash for freedom, like some junkie Butch Cassidy, you owe me the truth.”
Derek stared out the windshield, running his thumb absently along the sharp edge of the knife. He was silent for so long Greg was certain he wouldn’t answer, but then he did. “I owed a lot of money to a dealer.”
“All this is because of a debt to a fucking drug dealer? Jesus, Derek, there are other things you can do than threaten to murder my wife and then skip town.”
“You said you wanted the truth. Are you going to let me give it to you or do you just want to rant and rave? Your choice. Either one’s fine with me.”
Greg looked away from the road and studied his brother’s face for longer than he should have, given the fact he was driving. “It’s a lot worse than just owing a dealer some scratch, isn’t it?”
Derek returned Greg’s gaze just as he turned his attention back to the traffic. “It’s not just a dealer, Greg. It’s the main distribution guy for this entire area.”
“The mob.”
Derek shrugged. “Something like that. It’s not that cut-and-dried anymore. Could be the Russians, could be the Italians, could be the Chinese. Who the hell knows? The point is this guy is connected and powerful.”
“So you owe money to a really bad guy.”
“Yes. A lot of money.”
“And you can’t pay it and so you’re looking to skip town for awhile. I get that. But why the desperation, why the knife and the threats and scaring an innocent woman half to death? Why not just come and talk to me like a human being?”
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“And it’s worse.”
“Tell me.”
“The dude gave me the chance to wipe my financial slate clean and earn a couple fixes, too. All I had to do was strong-arm some financial big shot who also owed money to this guy. But things—”
“Wait a second.” Greg looked at Derek incredulously. “He sent you to work someone over? You can barely string a coherent sentence together.”
Derek continued as though Greg hadn’t even spoken. He stared straight out the windshield and kept talking. “But things went bad. Really bad.”
Warning bells were going off inside Greg’s head as he listened to his brother’s narrative. A sense of impending doom had begun to envelop him, like a thick fog rolling in off the ocean. It was a sinking feeling and it was over and above the fury he’d felt at walking into his home and seeing Brenna being held at knifepoint by his own brother.
The warning bells clanged relentlessly and Greg felt his mouth becoming sticky and dry. He thought he knew what was coming and he didn’t want to hear it. But ignoring the problem
