Page 3 of Chasing Danger

I sighed. “Nana.” We had the same conversation every morning and never got anywhere. “The nurse needs to be here to help take care of Rowan. Mom has to work, and you can’t manage his care on your own.”

Standing on the front porch of the house, my gaze drifted up to the bedroom window where I knew my brother slept.

Rowan was only fifteen and had been born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy. It weakened his muscles to the point that he needed round the clock care. He put on a brave face, never complainingabout his situation, but I knew how much his condition pained him, both emotionally and physically.

My bedroom sat right next to his, and some nights I heard him crying through the walls.

Nana just sniffed in disdain. “Your mother wouldn’t need to waste her money on an at home nurse if you stayed here to take care of him instead of going off to that coffee job. Your salary doesn’t even cover the cost of the nurse. It’s a waste.”

“Mother, stop giving Oliver a hard time,” my own mother interrupted us as she also stepped out onto the porch. “He deserves to have his own life and not be trapped in the house all the time. Besides, an employment gap on his resume could make it harder for him to find work in the future. It’s good that he’s maintaining a job now.

I gave my mother a grateful smile but couldn’t look at her for long. Heavy bags hung under her eyes, blatantly displaying her exhaustion to the world. She was a nurse and worked long hours at the nearby hospital. It helped us keep expenses down, since she could look after Rowan when she wasn’t on shift, but the job ran her ragged.

I couldn’t remember the last time my mother didn’t look exhausted.

“I need to get going.”

With a strained smile on her face, my mother wished me a good day before greeting the at home nurse who was walking up the porch steps.

I left before Nana could say anything else. The bus stop was only a few blocks away, so I didn’t have far to walk. I’d been workingat the same cafe since I turned eighteen. Four years of practice allowed me to time the commute perfectly. I arrived just as the bus I needed pulled up, so I didn’t have to wait around.

It was early. The sun had barely made an appearance over the horizon, and a few lingering stars could still be seen in the sky. At such an hour, the bus wasn’t packed yet, so I easily found a seat at the back where I wouldn’t be disturbed.

From there, I had exactly thirty-two minutes before the bus reached my stop near the coffee shop. So, like I did most mornings, I pulled out my sketchbook. Except, this time I didn’t draw. Instead, I opened a folder that I kept hidden at the back of the book.

Since my mother was so busy, I volunteered to help the household by managing our finances. It had started when I was sixteen, and my mother accidentally forgot to pay the bills one too many times. She nearly went to jail, though luckily she managed to avoid such a fate. Between her job and my brother, she just didn’t have the energy to keep track of anything else, so I’d started managing the books for her.

Looking down at the numbers listed on the spreadsheet in my lap, I was once again thankful that I’d taken on the responsibility when I did. My mother didn’t need a daily reminder of how hopeless our situation really was.

There was no sugarcoating it. We were screwed.

When Rowan had been born with SMA, the initial treatments had put us into a lifetime of debt. Then, just a few months after his birth, a house fire had stolen our home. The insurance payout had barely covered my burn treatment, and certainly wasn’t going to buy us a new house. So we’d moved in with Nana.

Since then, Rowan’s condition had improved enough to have a mostly normal lifespan, but SMA was genetic and progressive. It would never go away, and he would need continued treatment the rest of his life. Despite working so hard to pay for everything, it seemed like the financial hole we’d found ourselves in was just as deep as ever.

At the rate we were going, three lifetimes wouldn’t be enough to pay off our debt. It was a hole we could never escape, unless we did something drastic.

Some days, the drastic option didn’t seem so bad.

By the end of the bus ride, I’d managed to pay off a few bills through the banking app on my phone, and recalculated this week’s budget. Rowan only needed treatment every few months, now, instead of every few weeks like when he was a baby, so there was a little more breathing room in between. His next treatment was coming up soon, and I needed to scrape together as much extra money as possible in the meantime to prepare for the inevitable expense.

CHAPTER 3

D’Angelo

The three hoursto Baltimore seemed to pass in the space between breaths. It felt like I had just closed my eyes when Eva was nudging me awake and claiming that our destination was only a few minutes down the road.

I’d never spent much time in Baltimore before, but major cities all tended to look very similar at the heart. Tall buildings rose on either side of the street, blocking the view of the sky. The sun had set, and it was night now, but one could hardly tell due to the numerous streetlights and glowing advertisements hanging above every shop and restaurant.

The neon image of a cup of coffee caught my attention, and I ordered Gavriil to pull over. Three hours of sleep had barely scratched the surface of my exhaustion. In order to get through this meeting, I needed some caffeine in my veins.

Stepping through the front door of the cafe, I was surprised to find it empty. Sure, Baltimore wasn’t as busy as a place like New York City, but it was still a major metropolitan. A cafe sitting ina prime spot on a main street should have been overflowing with customers.

I checked my watch. The time was later than I thought, and the shop closed in exactly three minutes.

While I hated to be that customer who came in right at the end of the day, I didn’t have many other options. At this point coffee was a need, not just a want, and I was already in the shop. Backing out now would just be awkward.

No one stood behind the counter—which was understandable as they were probably in the back cleaning up for the night—so I was forced to ring the service bell. The high-pitched chime made me wince.

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