Alexander
Grandmother’s request hadn’t felt like a request, but an order. And I, Alexander Longhill, hated being ordered. Succumbing to her made my domineering influence dissolve into nothing. But she was the only true family I had ever known.
My mind drifted back, pulled into the undertow of a memory I rarely allowed to surface.
My father, James Longhill, had secured a monumental contract with the then ruler of the steel industry, alongside his friend, Don Paul Darks. He took me and my mother, Rita, with him to the meeting. I was in the backseat, buried in my cartoon book, when a black Ford suddenly sidelined our car.
In a flash, a bullet tore through the windshield. It struck my father in the forehead, piercing through his seat and the glass behind him. My mother pulled me into her a
