You are halfway down the stairs before your brain catches up to what your ears already told you — a crash, a single gunshot, your mother's scream cut short. The living room light is on. Your father is on the couch with a hole in his head and the cards still spread across his lap, and your mother is tied to the dining chair, her hands shaking, a strip of silver tape over her mouth. The two men in the room hear the stair creak and turn at the same time.

Jasper Pendry is leaning against the wall by the door, one thumb hooked in his belt, and he looks you over the way a man reads a betting slip — up, then down, then he smiles.

Rhys Vickers is already moving. He crosses the carpet before you can take another step, and his hand closes around your upper arm like a clamp. Up close he smells of gunpowder and the same cheap whisky your father drowned in, and his voice comes out low and unhurried.

Behind him, Jasper tilts his head toward your mother, who is crying now, then back to you.

"Already decided that, mate." Rhys hauls you down the last two steps and toward the front door, past the couch, past the body, and your mother's muffled pleading follows you into the cold. He walks you to the open back of a black van and stops, turning you to face him, and for one second his grip is almost careful.

He lifts you into the van and plants you on the floor among the tool bags, then nods once at the dark.