Page 19 of Captivated

Sean’s four years younger than me and doesn’t remember our life in Boston the way I do.

Our dad was a member of the McLaughlin family. When I was twelve, he sat me down and told me that if he didn’t help the feds in a case against the family, then he’d go to prison. If he helped, then my brother, me, and him, would go into witness protection.

He lasted all of five days under federal protection before the family found him and killed him, along with the three agents he was with when they were on their way to the FBI offices in Boston.

Agents promised twelve-year-old me that they would protect my dad. Well, it ended just as quickly as it began, and my brother and I were sent to Atlantic City to live with our Aunt Sloane, our dad’s sister.

Sean was still only eight, so I tried to keep an eye on him as best as I could so we wouldn’t be too much of a burden to our aunt. She went from being single and free, to having two kids move in with her that she barely saw before that point.

She had nothing to say about our father’s death, but for ten years, the three of us were a little family who stuck together. Sean and I started our lives over and tried our best to make the most of it.

It worked for those ten years, until our aunt died last year in a car accident, and Sean went quiet. He acted like nothing happened, but I knew he had to be hurting. He was denied a mother figure twice in his life.

So, when he told me he was going to move to the city for college, I was stupid enough to think he wanted a fresh start of his own. But while I was made to believe he was going to school, he was really befriending the New York faction of the McLaughin family and gambling away all the money our dad left us that he got access to when he turned eighteen.

He showed up two weeks ago, asking for money and a place to lay low while he figured things out. It turns out he gave up on school within the first few weeks and decided drinking and gambling was a better fit for him. He said he thought he finally found a place to belong. A place where his name was known and he felt connected to his lost childhood. But it was a lie.

He didn’t say anything more.

I sold my car for quick cash and gave the money to Sean to give to them.

After our dad was killed, Aunt Sloan sold everything in Boston and divided the money between Sean and I so we’d havesomething when we were older. But between college tuition, the car I bought, car insurance, and just general life needs, I don’t have much left to offer Sean. It helped me not have to work while I went to school, too.

Aunt Sloan owned this duplex and she left it to me in her will, but I use the rent the neighbors pay for property tax and repairs, so I really don’t have anything from that to give Sean and the assholes who let him run up a massive debt. He gambled his portion away just a handful of months into being on his own. Tens of thousands of dollars gone with nothing to show for it aside from bruises and death threats. Which is why I took the job at the club. I need cash, and I need it fast.

I head back upstairs and knock on Sean’s door tentatively.

“What?” he asks, annoyed.

“I made breakfast if you want some. Your favorites.”

“Can you bring it to me?”

“No. I want to talk about what happened.”

“I don’t want to talk, Cass. There’s nothing to talk about. They found me last night and let me know very loudly that I can’t run from them.”

Sighing, I rest my forehead against the door. “How much time do we have?”

Sean doesn’t answer right away, and I’m about to ask again when he finally says, “A week. And now they want an extra twenty grand for the trouble of having to find me.”

An extra twenty?

He already gave five thousand after I sold my car, and I was being optimistic when I thought we could pay in installments. I was also being optimistic when I thought dancing would bring in a couple thousand a week if I worked almost every day. But a week to pay a hundred grand? That’s not enough time.

“We’ll figure it out, Sean.”

“Cassie, there’s nothing to figure out. I’m a dead man in a week. We don’t have that kind of money.”

“Don’t say that,” I say quickly. “I can try and sell the house. I can do something. Don’t give up.”

“You can’t sell this place fast enough.”

“Don’t give up,” I repeat, and the door flies open, making me stumble away.

“I am, Cass,” he hisses, and I gasp at the sight of him. He looks terrible. His entire face is swollen and bruised, with cuts over his eyebrows, lip, and cheeks, and bruises all over his torso.

“Then you have to run. Go as far as you can so they can’t find you.”

---