Page 1 of Collision of Winters
2021
PROLOGUE
The Winters Curse
Wade Winters
Had I seen that picture on Chris’s desk before? I picked up the frame while I waited for him to arrive and studied the timid smile on Kayden’s face. Yaya was hugging his midsection, beaming like the proud grandmother she was to essentially everyone in the family. Well, those who were still with us.
The only thing I wanted to change was the timid part. I much preferred Kayden’s beaming smiles and mischievous grins, even more so because they were rare these days.
The thought of something happening to him put a rock in the pit of my stomach, and it was impossible not to think about the Winters Curse.
Unlike Chris, I had some memories left of our biological parents—and our baby sister. I remembered Juliana had cried a lot. It’d annoyed my five-year-old self to pieces. A newborn sister—what was I supposed to do with her? She hadn’t been able to catch a football, nor had she listened to me.
Chris hadn’t been much better as a toddler.
How untroubled we’d been back then. Life had been all about sneaking cookies, waiting for Dad to come home from another deployment, playing catch, and begging Mom for the next time I’d be able to see my much cooler cousin Quinlan.
Then one night, when Chris and I were at a sleepover at Quin’s house, Uncle Arthur and Aunt Clara told us something bad had happened.
Chris and I never saw our parents or Juliana again, and sleepovers with Quinlan suddenly became permanent when Arthur took us in.
This was bad enough, wasn’t it? The tragedy was supposed to stop there. We’d suffered enough loss.
But fast-forward to the year I turned eleven. Arthur and Clara were shot dead in broad daylight in New York. Quinlan joined the orphans club at the age of twenty, and the last sibling of our parents’ generation stepped forward to become our home. Yaya and Quin had been in the middle of their own grief, but they’d set everything aside to make sure Chris and I didn’t lose ourselves in our rage.
Although Yaya was technically our aunt, she’d earned the nickname of a grandmother long before I’d been born. Her brothers had called her that because she’d acted like a grandma to everyone. She did that now too, and though she’d never admit to having a favorite, we knew Kayden was special to her.
Now, with someone coming for Chris—and possibly Kayden…?
If anything happened to either of them, the damn curse was real, and I was going to?—
The door opened behind me, and I was brought back to the present by Chris entering his office.
“Sorry I’m late. My briefing took longer than I thought it would,” he said. “Why do you look pissy?”
Deep breaths.
I didn’t know what to say, so I just put the photo back on the desk and cleared my throat.
“Ah.” He figured it out when he saw the picture. “Nothin’s gonna happen to him.”
“Or you,” I added.
He smirked. “Or me. This ain’t my first rodeo.”
That was hardly reassuring.
“Just fill me in,” I said. “When do you ship out?”
He winced and rubbed the back of his neck. “You know I can’t tell you.”
I clenched my jaw but said nothing, and I leaned back against the desk. Being on a need-to-know basis didn’t usually bother me. I had my job, and Chris had his. But this was different.
“This is killin’ you, innit?” He cocked his head.
I frowned. “What, being left behind for something like this? What the fuck do you think?”
