Chapter One — Before the Storm
The morning started the way all of Nora's mornings did. Quietly and without warning.
Light came through the curtains and landed on her face and she was up before she fully meant to be, blonde hair a mess across the pillow, green eyes blinking at the ceiling. She lay there for a moment just listening. Sera was already moving around downstairs. She could hear the clink of a spoon against a bowl and the low murmur of whatever show her sister watched at breakfast.
She got up, washed her face and went down.
"You look like a painting," Sera said without looking up from her phone.
"You say that every morning."
"Because every morning it is true."
Nora poured herself coffee and leaned against the counter and looked at her sister. Nineteen and completely at ease in the world, cereal bowl in front of her, feet tucked under herself on the chair. Nora felt the usual quiet warmth that came from just being near Sera. Like standing in a patch of sun.
"Dad up yet?" Nora asked.
Sera shook her head. "Back room. Door closed."
Nora nodded and sipped her coffee and said nothing. Their father's closed doors were not new. She had learned to work around them the way you learn to work around a crack in the wall. You notice it, you note it, and then you keep moving.
She spent the morning at her desk on a logo commission for a small bakery in Brooklyn. The work came easily and by early afternoon she had something she was happy with. She saved it, rolled her neck and went downstairs for lunch.
She almost walked past the sitting room.
But her father's voice caught her, low and strange, and she stopped.
She pushed the door open.
Edmund Callahan sat in the armchair by the window looking like a man who had already lost a fight. His hands were clasped in his lap. He was staring at the floor. He looked up when she came in and the expression on his face told her everything before he said a single word.
"Sit down, love."
"What happened?"
"Please just sit down."
She sat.
He talked for a long time. The gambling, which she had suspected. The debts, which she had not known were this bad. The men he owed money to, the kind who did not wait politely. The months he had spent trying to find a way out on his own and failing every time. And then the phone call. The name.
Lucian Deveraux.
"He agreed to clear everything," her father said. "Every debt. Gone."
"In exchange for what?"
He looked at the floor again.
"Dad." Her voice was very steady. "In exchange for what?"
He nodded toward the side table. There was a folded document sitting on it that had not been there this morning. She picked it up and read it. Then she read it again.
She set it down on her knee.
"You signed this already," she said. It was not a question.
"I had no choice, Nora."
"You had every choice." She stood up. "You just made yours."
She walked to the window and stood with her back to him for a moment. Outside the street was ordinary. A woman walked a dog. A delivery truck idled at the corner. The world outside had no idea.
"If I do not sign," she said quietly, "what happens to Sera?"
Her father said nothing. Which was its own answer.
Nora turned around, picked up the document and the pen sitting beside it and signed her name at the bottom of the page. Clean and steady. She set the pen down and folded the contract and held it out to him.
"Tell me when they are coming," she said. Then she walked out.
Upstairs, she sat on the edge of her bed and looked at her hands for a while. The joy she had woken up with was still somewhere inside her. She could feel where it had been. But it was quiet now and she had a feeling it was going to stay quiet for some time.
