Page 3 of Unspoken

"There’s a job that has your name written all over it," he finally spills. "Big fish looking for a personal guard dog. Pays very well."

"Pays very well" piques my interest, but I’m selective. There are gigs I don’t take and people I don’t work for. "Who's the big fish?"

"Someone extremely powerful," Frankie murmurs, a conspiratorial glint in his eyes.

"Who?" I press. This dumb habit of his, pretending he’s acting out some scene in a new Hollywood blockbuster irritates the hell out of me.

"Vlad Solovey," Frankie whispers, the name slithering through the bar like a snake seeking its next target. My hand stills on the bottle, the cold sweat of the glass matching the sudden chill down my spine.

"Solovey?" My voice is steady, but inside, I'm a tightrope walker in a gust of wind. "That's a whole different level of heat, Frankie."

It’s never a boy’s dream to be guarding the criminal elite of the city, especially if all the boy’s ever wanted to do is to serve and protect. Like his father. But life is a funny thing. It never goes the way you want it to go. One split-second decision to protect someone else instead of your own skin, and you’re on theother side of the law, so to speak. And every job chips away at something inside me, but the ends justify the means. Or that’s what I’ve been telling myself for the past five years.

Mom's face, gaunt and hopeful, pushes itself into my mind's eye.

"Come on, Logan," Frankie mutters. "Don't be too choosy. The guy's got resources, connections, money to burn. And I mean literally." He grins again. "And he pays like a slot machine on a lucky streak."

"Working for the Russian is like dancing with the devil in a minefield." I set the bottle down, the click of glass on wood punctuating my resolve. "Not interested."

Solovey is the last person I would ever work for, no matter how much he pays. He’s dangerous.

"Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it, yeah? The man's got mad respect in the circles that matter." Frankie's eyes glint, but they're all show, no tell—like the neon lights outside promising dreams that only turn to dust.

"Rumor has it Solovey's tangled up with the cartel," I counter.

"Listen. You don't have to make up your mind right this second, you know? Mull it over a bit, huh?" There’s a pause. "Solovey’s gold could take care of a lot of your... problems." He gulps down his beer, throat bobbing like a buoy at sea. "How about I give you forty-eight hours? Yeah?" Frankie stands, his stool scraping harshly against the floor like a match struck in the dark. "Think about it," he says again before sauntering off and leaving me alone with my thoughts and an unpaid tab for his beer.

The hospital swallows me up as I step inside. A sterile beast with walls the color of old bones. I wade through the fluorescent hum, my boots silent on the linoleum that stretches out like an endless, pallid tongue. The air here is filled with the scent of disinfectant, a futile armor against the undeniable stench of decay and death it can't quite mask.

For each life saved, there’s always a life lost. It’s the way it is and I don’t know which life my family will become today. A dreadful feeling.

I've walked these halls so often I could navigate them blindfolded, but today each step still feels like a march toward an unwinnable war.

I turn the corner and avert my gaze, avoiding looking at the sign that readsOncology. The denial in me is so strong, I think my behavior is almost childish. But I just can’t deal now, with the inevitability of it all.

I knock gently before I push the door open and enter her ward. I’m a shadow, slipping across the walls, silent and unseen. I don’t want to disturb my mother’s fragile peace.

She’s asleep and I quietly grab a chair and pull it up to her bed.

For a while I just watch her. She’s lost a lot of weight and is a wisp of a woman beneath a mound of bleached sheets. Her chest is rising and falling with the quiet determination of someone fighting a battle only she can see. She's hooked up to machines that beep and breathe almost as if they are an extension of her. And as much as I hate it, I’m grateful we have an opportunity to do this, even without my insurance.

Sometime later, Cecilia McKenna finally opens her eyes and somehow it’s such a relief to see her like this—to see her aware I’m her son, and smiling at me, although weakly.

"Hey, Ma," I say, forcing brightness into my voice, but it feels like shattered glass in my throat.

"Hey, my sweet boy," she whispers.

"How're you holding up?" I pull the chair a little closer, its screech against the floors a blasphemy in the silence.

"Fine, just fine," she insists. "The meds are helping." It's a well-rehearsed lie. I can see the truth etched in the hollows of her cheeks and the translucence of her skin.

"Ma, you don't have to—" I start, but she cuts me off with a faint wave of her hand.

"Let's not talk about me. It’s always the same story. Damn cancer gets me and I fight it off. Granted, every time I beat it, it gets a little piece of me, but I’m okay. Better tell me about your day." Her eyes search mine, seeking a distraction from the white-walled world she's confined within for the time being.

"Same old, Ma," I deflect, knowing my day's dealings are stories too dark for this room. "Just work stuff."

"Anything interesting?" There's a spark of curiosity in her gaze, a remnant of the fierce woman who raised me.

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