Hold Me Like a Breath (5 page)

She graduated from high school a few weeks ago. The past nine years since we'd met—she wouldn't have had those without the Family Business.

That was enough. That was all I needed to know. Illegal or not, that was
good
.

I heard something. A crack so sharp it echoed and seemed to fill the spaces between my bones, making me shiver. I prayed it was a car backfiring.

Then it happened again.

My stomach jumped to my throat, crowded out my lungs, and made it impossible to breathe. I tried the door handle, but it wouldn't open. Not the first, second, or eighth time I jerked on it. Not even when I pulled hard enough for it to bite into the insides of my fingers.

Terror was a thing with claws that squeezed my throat and demanded I keep yanking and yanking on the handle. It
whispered my worst memories in my ear, flashbacks to my tenth birthday when we'd gotten news of an FBI raid at the Nantucket clinic. The local police on the Family payroll had failed to tip them off, so the staff hadn't had time to activate the spa facade. Things had escalated quickly, badly: handcuffs, gunshots.

A second call had come in while my family was singing “Happy Birthday”: Keith Ward had passed away from bullet wounds. The candles melted all over my Empire State Building cake; I'd been too busy gasping for air to blow them out. And what was the point? It was far too late to wish Garrett's oldest brother would be all right.

Keith had been a thug with a gun. Garrett … he couldn't be.

They had to be okay. They
had
to be.

I was so focused on that noise and looking out the front of the car, it was perfectly reasonable that I jumped and screamed when I heard a thump behind me. The trunk opened. Something heavy thudded inside. The trunk shut. Carter and Garrett got back in the car, still laughing at me.

“You scare too easily,” said Carter.

I refused to let my relief escape in a sob or declaration that I loved him. “Yeah, well … not all of us make a habit of skulking around in shady places,” I finished lamely.

“Skulking?” Garrett grinned. “Nice vocabulary. What're you, fifty?”

“Nope, she's Nolan Jr. None of that hooligan teen-speak for our Penelope.”

“Maybe I'd speak more like a teen if I ever got to spend time
with any.” I'd tried for defiant, but it came out as wistful. I ground my teeth. “Stop distracting me. Were those gunshots? And were they yours? Did you just put a
body
in the trunk?”

“A body?” scoffed Carter. “This isn't
The Godfather
, Pen. We're not a mafia out whacking people … although I'd kinda love to hear you say ‘fuhgeddaboutit' in your prissy little voice.” His eyes were too bright, his forehead beaded with sweat, his smile stretched wide and smug.

“I didn't shoot anyone.” Garrett hit my brother on the arm. “Sorry we scared you.”

“What you guys are doing—this thing you can't tell Father—it's really dangerous, isn't it?”

Carter gave me a quick grin as he glanced over his shoulder and reversed out of the parking lot. The tires squealed as he threw the car in drive and sped down the street. “If I say it is, will that scare you off?”

“No,” I said through gritted teeth.

“I wish it would.” Garrett turned around in his seat. “I'm not going to let anything happen to him or you.” Which was the exactly wrong thing for him to say when he was still holding a gun in his lap.

“And who's going to protect you?” I locked eyes with Garrett, each of us daring the other to look away first. I wasn't going to back down, not even if my gaze laid bare how much I cared about his well-being.

“Hungry?” Carter asked, and we both jumped. “I'm ready to get my B-B-Q on.”

“Stop. No. Just stop. We're not going to dinner right now,” I
said. “We're not going to a restaurant where you'll use ‘public place' as an excuse to ignore my questions. I'm not leaving this car until I get some answers.”

“But I'm starving,” Carter whined.

“Fine. We can eat. Drive-through. No one is getting out of this car.”

“I have to pee.” Carter was way too self-amused, and Garrett snickered.

If I could have kicked the back of their seats without Garrett insisting we pull over so he could check for bruises, I would've. I settled for narrowing my eyes. “You're not funny,” I told Carter.

“I'm hilarious. Your sense of humor is broken.”

We both looked to Garrett. “Oh, no. I want no part of this.
Stay out of Landlow infighting
is the first rule of being a Ward.”

Was the second about carrying a gun? Seeing him holding it so casually made my stomach clench and my appetite disappear. I shivered in the A/C.

“What did you shoot?” I asked. “And can you put that away, please?”

“Car tires,” he answered.

“Bet they won't be late again,” Carter said. His eyes were on the road as he merged onto the highway. He didn't see the way I watched Garrett's hands on the gun or the way Garrett was watching me in the rearview mirror, his mouth forming an apology. He leaned forward and tucked it back in its holster.

“So you don't want to go to the city, Pen? You'd rather do drive-through and head home?” Carter put on his blinker and moved into the right lane.

Not fair. He
knew
about my NYC obsession. He
knew
I rarely saw it on anything other than TV and computer screens. “Fine. Let's go get dinner.”

“Sure thing.” He accelerated and merged left, exchanging a look with Garrett that was far too smug.

“So, did tonight's errand have anything to do with
Everly
?” I threw out the word like a challenge, and they both froze.

“What do you know about the Everlys?” asked Garrett.

The answer, not that I would ever admit it, was
nothing
. I didn't even know to add a “the” in front. It was just a word I'd overheard a few times lately. Always in hushed tones and always with serious expressions.

But where Garrett looked horrified, Carter grinned like I'd just invented electricity.

“The Everlys?” I prompted. “Answers?”

Carter shrugged. “They're an upstart. A wannabe Family.”

“And?” I'd eavesdropped enough to know new Families never succeeded. They didn't have the influence to buy off/blackmail law enforcement and government officials. They didn't have the pharmaceutical companies in their pockets, so they lacked a steady supply of antirejection meds, steroids, antibiotics, etc. They had a shortage of skilled doctors and were too reckless with recruiting donors. My grandfather had had to deal with all these obstacles when he'd started the Family, way back before Father was born, but he'd had some advantages: money; a family with influence and connections; a half-dozen established spas that could be transformed into clinics without raising suspicion; a wife who was a transplant surgeon and fed up with the days she
wasn't
performing surgeries because there weren't organs available. But, most important, he was
first
. Not that he hadn't encountered raids and setbacks, but he'd been able to get up and running, establish safeguards and cover stories, before the Feds even knew the Business existed. Or maybe that wasn't most important. Maybe the most important thing was a character trait he shared with Father—they were fastidious. Grandfather had had incredible attention to detail, and he demanded it from everyone around him.

Father said all the upstarts were sloppy—too focused on making a quick profit and ignoring both the minutiae and bigger picture. He said
this
was why they inevitably got themselves arrested—which actually benefited the real Families because it kept the FBI busy and away from us.

“The Everlys use cadaver tissue, Pen,” said Carter, “and most of it comes from crematorium or morgue connections.”

“Like you were talking about earlier,” I said, “in the library.”

“No! Not at—they're nothing like that. We're, we're nothing like—we would never be like them.”

Carter was almost incoherent with horror, so I turned to Garrett. “Explain.”

“There are some … questions about where they get their organs and their clinic conditions. Like, they told this one guy he was getting a teenager's heart and it was actually a sixty-five-year-old's. The guy needs another transplant already and he's DQ'd from the government list. And there have been rumors of patients getting hepatitis from organs. Hep C, I think.”

“They're using diseased and misrepresented organs,” said Carter. “I'd never do something like that!”

“Well, of course not,” I agreed. “Are they a threat?”

He shook his head. “They shouldn't be. They should all be arrested or out of the Business soon enough.”

“So why were you talking about crematoriums earlier? Our Family only does live-donor transplants. Or donors who signed over their bodies while still alive.” I swallowed a “right?” but the statement still sounded like a question.

“Pen, I'm talking innovations. If Father wants to compete, he's got to change things up, or we'll be swallowed by the Zhus and the Vickers.”

“The Zhus are on the West Coast, the Vickers are in Texas—I hardly feel like they're about to raid New England and steal our patients.”

“True,” said Garrett. “But if the Organ Act passes and donation becomes legalized, what's going to happen to us? We need a backup plan.”

This might've been a time when I could've explained
exactly
what I thought would happen if H.R. 197—aka the Organ Act—miraculously managed to become a law: we'd become a legal industry. Yes, we'd lose significant money per surgery because of the proposed price regulations, but we'd also be able to slash our overhead, cut costs on security and payoffs.

But that conversation would be endless, and I wanted more answers. “The Organ Act has been stuck in subcommittees for forever. That's not an immediate threat.”

“Fine,” said Garrett. “But the Everlys are doing their best to poach our client list, which is dangerous for everyone and another reason we need to innovate.”

“But Carter just said they weren't a threat! And what's the
innovation
that's in the trunk?”

There was a long silence. Garrett played with the stereo; he even turned on the
Once Upon a Mattress
score … which lasted a whole thirty seconds before Carter changed it. I stared at the back of their seats. Standing, they were the same heights, but Garrett's shoulders were broader, and Carter was built like Father, all long legs, so seated he looked shorter.

“Is anyone going to answer me? Don't stop now, it was finally getting interesting.”

There was another silence, an exchange of looks. It ended in Garrett swearing under his breath and Carter changing lanes a little too aggressively.

“Let's make a deal,” he said. “I'll drop you and Gare off to pick up dinner, then park and use the bathroom. You guys can meet me, and I'll tell you what I can.”

“Meet you
where
?”

He grinned. “Remember in middle school when Gare and I had that clubhouse and you were desperate to come in? Well, here's your chance to see our latest hideaway—we've upgraded a bit since then. So … deal?”

It wasn't like I really had a choice, but at least he was pretending I did. “On one condition,” I said. “I want pizza. The greasy, delicious kind you see in every NYC movie.”

Carter said he had the “perfect spot,” and I expected somewhere in Little Italy or one of the restaurants I'd seen on a Food Network show, but he dropped us outside a narrow pizza place in Harlem, a couple of blocks past the Apollo Theater. It was loud, busy, crowded with customers—and corners: on the tables, freezer cases, counters. The type of chaos that made Garrett extra-vigilant and me hyper-aware of the distance between my body and all potential bruisers while we waited for our slices to be heated, tossed on paper plates, and slid into a brown paper bag.

I exhaled my relief when Garrett opened the restaurant's door and we stepped into the night. I pulled out my phone and opened my favorite NYC map app, adding a flag to mark our spot.

“I'm dying to see your ‘secret clubhouse'—does this one have Spiderman posters too?” As I skipped down the sidewalk, the
toe of my shoe hit a piece of broken bottle and sent it tinkling off into the shadows.

“Put your phone away.” His expression was tight. “Stay close to me.”

I understood that order. We walked past cracked windows and graffiti, around split garbage bags and the huddled shapes of the homeless. It was very different
being here
versus playing with virtual maps—marking walks I hoped to take in some distant, healthy future and planning someday visits to landmarks and museums. Although those walks and places weren't in this neighborhood.

Garrett was at my side, one hand not quite touching my elbow, the other clutching the brown bag that was growing grease stains. His eyes were alert and darting but also pointing out things.

“See that alley? It goes all the way to the next street. That one, the one with the tattoo parlor on the corner? It's a dead end. Don't go in that bodega. It's just a cover for a drug operation. You know how to work the panic button on your phone, right? And how to tell if someone's following you?”

“Of course. I might not be ‘hot,' but I'm not helpless. My father taught me some things too.” I saw him wince, his hand involuntarily patting the back of his shirt.

“This is a bad idea. I don't agree with Carter. I don't think dragging you into any of this is smart or safe.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Too bad it's not your decision.”

“Yeah. Well, I guess it's too late now anyway. We're here.”