And the security guard we snuck past—a single widower with a baby at home—who lost his job.

I’ve memorized every detail of the consequences of my actions.

Overwhelmed by memory—and maybe regret—I cross to my window and pull it wide. Several deep breaths of damp air and I start to feel in control again.

I stand there for a while longer, my hands braced on the window frame, drawing in calming breaths. I’m surprised to see the sky painted red and pink with the setting sun. Had that much of the day flown by already?

No wonder my wrist started to hurt.

A crashing sound, the faint echo of breaking glass, reaches my ears. Followed by a shouting male voice. I tilt my head, trying to discern the origin. Definitely coming from next door.

I can’t make out any words—and I should be ashamed that I actually lean out the window to try—but the voice is definitely Mr. Dorsey. There is another, softer sound. Almost like sobbing.

Part of me can’t help but wonder what the fight is about. But another part of me—the bigger part, apparently—knows it’s an invasion to even try to hear.

Mom and Dad don’t fight like that. There are no shouting voices or screaming fits. They fight with the cold shoulder, the silent treatment. The freeze-out. Going to work without saying good-bye, going to bed without saying good night.

I can’t help but think that maybe Mom and I wouldn’t be here in Austin right now if Dad had stood up and fought for me. Fought for our family.

Like that would ever happen.

I pull myself back inside, slide the window shut and, just for good measure, let the blinds drop into place. I have enough problems in my own life. I don’t need to be sticking my nose into anyone else’s.

With my mouse in hand, I get back to work.

Chapter Ten

The fighting was worse than usual. Tru didn’t know what his mother had done to upset the beast this time, but he heard the dishes break all the way upstairs in his room.

Tru went into the kind of zone that allowed him to still function while it was happening. For years, he had sat huddled at the end of the hall and listened. He had only tried once to intervene, had stepped between his mother and the blow she was about to receive.

For his efforts, he had ended up with a broken clavicle and a lecture from his mother about not getting involved.

That was a lesson he didn’t need to learn more than once.

Ever since, he had locked himself away in his room, tuning it out as much as possible and focusing on work until the fight turned into the making up.

The cycle was always the same. The raging fight. The tearful groveling. The making up behind locked doors.

To make it through without losing his mind and without giving in to the urge to race downstairs and protect the woman who would never return the favor, he focused on his work. Opened his editing software and dug in on his short film. The layers of sound and image and special effect, the intricacies of timing and color and cuts from one angle to another, were hypnotic.

He should have been working with headphones on—it was better for the sound editing—but then he wouldn’t know when it was over downstairs. While he wasn’t consciously listening to the fight, his subconscious was keeping tabs.

He let himself get lost in the video, focusing on the tiniest of details, over and over.

Several times he found his mind drifting to Sloane. Since the revelation that she’d been behind the Midtown Tower art installation, he’d been thinking about her in a new light. It hadn’t been a lie when he said he had new respect for her. It’s like he opened a door and found a whole new Sloane on the other side. A Sloane who not only stood up for herself and spoke her mind, but one who was willing to risk far more than he ever had.

He couldn’t even stand up to his father, let alone the NYPD.

Thinking about Sloane and his father in the same sentence made his stomach lurch. Then again, how could he even think of her while the one-sided battle between his parents raged downstairs?

If he cared for her so much as a little bit, he had to keep her as far from the line of fire as he could. Because if Tru knew one thing for sure, it was that his father had the ability to extinguish even the brightest star. And Tru couldn’t live with himself if he let that happen to Sloane.

He had no idea how much time had passed when his subconscious noted the telltale click of the lock on his parents’ bedroom door.

The switch in his brain flipped, and he waited only as long as it took to save his work before venturing into the hall, his footfalls silent as he padded downstairs, around the kitchen, and into his father’s den. Across the expensive rug to the locked cabinet against the far wall.

His parents would be occupied for hours.

Feeling along the top edge of the cabinet, he located the key that his father apparently thought was well enough hidden to keep Tru out of the liquor. He thought wrong.

The vast variety of his father’s collection spread out before him, Tru had to decide what to take and how much. It was a well-stocked bar—as if David Dorsey would settle for anything less—despite the fact that the man of the house only drank single malt scotch. The rest were for show and for guests.

Tru rubbed his hands together as he scanned the selection. It felt like a vodka night. There was orange juice in the refrigerator. Between the two, he could turn this night around in a hurry.

There were half a dozen bottles of vodka. What were the odds his father would notice one was missing?

Those were odds he was willing to play.

Tru grabbed an unopened bottle, relocked the cabinet, and placed the key back in the not-so-secret hiding place.

The first time he’d escaped into a bottle had been after the first time his father’s fists drew blood. A way to dull the pain, to silence his mind and the unanswerable questions.

Since that night, escaping into the bottle had become a habit, a ritual. When the gloves came off, the drink came out.

Like tonight.

After a quick stop in the kitchen to pick up a glass and the other half of a screwdriver recipe, he slipped out the back door and headed for the gazebo in the far corner of the yard.

It had a perfect view of the upstairs bedroom window next door. And the roof below it.

There was a gentle breeze, and the temperature outside was almost perfect. The faint scent of cedar and damp filled the air. Stars filled the sky. And the makings of a memory-eraser filled his cup.

Sloane wouldn’t approve. He could picture her freckled nose wrinkling up at the thought. But the part of his brain that worried about approval—hers, his father’s, anyone’s—had gone on autopilot. He couldn’t care anymore.

The night was definitely taking a turn upward. The only thing that would make it even better? Spending it with Sloane.

Chapter Eleven

I fall into bed, exhausted, at one in the morning. Mom tried to get me to come downstairs for dinner, but I ate a granola bar I had stashed in my desk drawer and the half sleeve of Oreos.

I’m sleeping so hard that when I first hear the sound I incorporate it into my dream. I’m fighting with Tash on top of a skyscraper when pigeons start tapping on the concrete floor around us. Tap, tap, tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

Tap, tap, Sloane.

What?

I bolt up in bed.

Tap, tap. “Sloane.”

I fling back the covers and hurry to the window. When I pull up the blinds I see Tru, face pressed against the glass as he taps one finger against my window.