Page 1 of Fighting For Light
Prologue
Kai
14 Years Old
“Hurry, Kai, we haveto go. Your father could come back any minute,” Mom says. My heart is leaping out of my chest. I’m scared for me, for Mom, and for my brothers. Emerson looks over his shoulder at me. His eye is purple and yellow from getting into a fight with Dad. He protected Liam and me, taking the brunt of the beating.
Mom’s bruises and wounds are hidden in places someone wouldn’t typically look. But the angry bruise from Dad’s hands wrapped around her neck as he choked her, trying to kill her, was the last straw. All three of us went after him then. It was chaos before he left in his drunken, high stupor. His driver picked him up, and he disappeared.
One would think that abusive husbands typically only come from lower-income, high-stress situations, but they don’t because I looked it up. It turns out you don’t have to be poor to be abused. Money has nothing to do with it.
Mom pushes us to the garage door. We toss what we could grab into the trunk of our Expedition and hop inside the truck. She backs it out, and we drive off into the night. We have some money. Mom told us she had been gradually untying funds since Dad stole it all and was trying to figure out how to get away from all of this. But she had to do it painstakingly slowly, so he wouldn’t notice because if he did, if he found out that she was takinghis money, then he would have killed her, then us. And he would have made it look like an accident.
Our father is a United States Congressman and is as corrupt and cruel as they come. He’s much better at hiding it than others. Behind closed doors, he is the evil he yells about extinguishing from the cities of Massachusetts.
Streetlights flash in my face as we drive and drive and drive. I don’t know where we’re going. I don’t care, either. Anywhere that is far away from Dad is good enough for me.
Mom and Emerson whisper in the front while Liam and I sit in the back, staring out the window.
“Are you sure that won’t bring more attention to us?” Emerson asks quietly. He’s the most angry of us all. I think I understand why, but I never ask. He’s done enough for us. The last thing I need to do is push him to tell me something he doesn’t want to talk about.
“It’s the only way for us to protect ourselves,” Mom answers. “We have to hide in plain sight.”
I don’t know what that means. She has bigger goals for us. She wants us to be able to make our way in this world, knowing Dad could find us at any moment and rip her away. But she says she refuses to live life in fear. So I won’t, either. None of us will.
1
Kai
Present Day
Leaning back in mychair, Emerson draws a knife across the man’s ribs, and blood seeps from the cut. He screams into the gag in his mouth as he hangs from chains, and I sigh.They always squeal like pigs.What happened to take it like a man?
Me and my brothers don’t enjoy doing this…maybe except for Liam. He seems to enjoy pushing the envelope. Regardless, it is a necessity. These guys don’t talk unless you make them.
It always makes me wonder, though, how far you can push a man to break his loyalty under the threat of death. If I’ve learned anything, we all have different limits. Loyalty is in the mind, not the body. So it’s harder to break, harder to get them to talk. Usually, we push until we know they’re done talking, then end it with a bullet to the head. It’s simpler that way.
But this one won’t be so lucky. We want to make him hurt. He approached our mother while she was shopping the other day. He knocked out Clarence, her bodyguard, and cornered her. No one survives that. We wouldn’t allow it.
“Who sent you?” Liam asks, his tone firm with a quiet coldness. The sound of it would send chills down my spine if it were directed at me. Liam is a ladies’ man, full of charm and comfortable in any room. But when we have to dothis,all of us become different.
Emerson socks him in the face, and I wince. I’m pretty sure the guy lost teeth, and he will probably choke on them at the rate we’re going. We’re colder and meaner because we have to be. Otherwise, we’ll all end up in unmarked graves the Costa’s already have dug for us. It’s been fourteen years since we ran, and it’s been quiet for the most part. But Mom knew it wouldn’t last forever. There would come a day when he wanted us back. The only reason he has left us alone this long was because it worked for him. He and the Costa mob have a good racket going. But the balance was disturbed, his seat in Congress is being threatened by an opponent for the first time in five terms. We’re under the impression that he’s nervous about the sudden competition. The status quo has changed, and he is a prideful man who thrives on using others as his pawns. By sending this goon after our mother, Fred Coldwell is reminding us who’s in control, and he’s still a part of our lives.
Leaving couldn’t have been easy for Mom when we were teens. She saved our lives. Now, it’s our turn to protect her by any means necessary. The time of tentative peace is over.
Our captive screams again, and I’m getting tired of this because we’re not getting anything. I suspect he’s just a soldier and doesn’t know what his boss wants. He only does what he’s told.
Liam grabs his hair and yanks his head back while Emerson leans over him with a menacing glare. “This is your last chance, asshole. If you don’t start talking, I will knock your lights out—for good, Gregory.“ The man’s eyes widen, knowing he’s closerto death than he was twenty-four hours ago. He dug his own grave, and we are the executioners.
“His name is John,” I mutter.
“Why should I care?” Liam quips.
I send him a dirty look. “I don’t think he’s going to give us anything, One. He’s a soldier.”
“He had enough details to find Clarence, knock him out, and corner Mom,” Emerson says, glaring at John.
“Come on, we can push him, Kai. For some reason, he’s more scared of them than he is of us, and yet, we are the ones who will end up putting a bullet in his head,” Liam says.
