Page 70 of The Way We Are

“Were they angry? I’d be mad if I lost that much money.”

“That’s a lot of money someone is trying to hide.”

My spine snaps straight when a disturbing notion pops into my head. I flip through the pages of the journal like a madman, only stopping once I reach the section when Savannah’s handwriting took over.

“Fuck,” I breathe out heavily, my one word unable to hide my torment.

Savannah’s entries are dated a little over two years ago—right around the time her mom moved to Hawaii.

The swirling in my stomach grows more rampant when I hold the open ledger at the same angle I did when I discovered Axel’s name scribbled across the front, so I can read an amount not written with ink.

“Jesus Fucking Christ.”

The invisible tally imprinted on the paper reaches the figure my quick calculations attained earlier: a neat three million dollars. It could just be a coincidence that the exorbitant amount went missing on the same month Savannah’s mom left town, but my intuition is warning me not to be so gullible. A cool three mill would cushion the most eccentric relocation, and Savannah’s mother has never been conventional.

Bile scorches my throat when my eyes catch sight of the name written in thick black ink at the top of the ledger: Petretti.

Not only is Savannah hiding a miscalculation of three million dollars; she's hiding a miscalculation of three million dollars belonging to a mob boss. That's ludicrous. That’s punishable.That’s a death sentence.

The more secrets I unravel, the more the fog clears from my brain.

“If I drive out of here alone, I’m driving straight to him.”

Does Axel know? Is that the hold he has over Savannah? He also reached the conclusion that Savannah’s mom stole from his family, so he's seeking restitution directly from Savannah?

I want to say “no” to all of the above, but the twisting of my stomach is too great to discount. When you add two and two together, you always reach four. This can’t be a coincidence.

It takes a few moments for my muddled brain to come up with a solution. It isn’t a good one, but when it's all you have, you must work with it.

While seeking an opening in the stream of cars surrounding me, I grab my cell phone out of my pocket. It takes me several attempts trying to fire it up before I remember it was bogged down with bucket loads of sea water last night. It’s fucked.

“Goddammit,” I roar, throwing it onto the dash of my car.

Too impatient to wait for an opening, I jerk my truck onto the road with the same aggression I used to remove it. Car horns honk, but they soon become a distant memory when I plant my foot on the gas pedal, leaving them for dust.

I weave in and out of the traffic like a madman, my mind on one thing and one thing only: hoping the money I have saved up will be enough of a down payment to get Axel off Savannah’s back.

It's nowhere near close to three million dollars, but it’s a start, and every negotiation has to start somewhere. If money won’t win him over, I’m sure I can come up with something just as lucrative. He’s facing three charges of attempted murder—he’s got plenty to work with.

I make the trip across Ravenshoe in a record pace, twenty minutes sliced down to eight. My truck barely mounts the curb outside my home when I rocket out of the driver side door and climb the stairs of my front porch.

“Ryan?” my mom shouts from the kitchen when the screen door gives out a creak.

“Not now, Mom.” I make a beeline for the stairs.

“I need to talk to you.”

The unease of her words slows my pace, but it doesn’t fully stop me. If I had spotted my dad’s keys on the entranceway table, I would be more inclined to stop, but since I know his shift doesn’t end for another two hours, my legs keep moving.

“Just give me a minute to grab something out of my room; I’ll be down in a sec,” I advise, incapable of overlooking the urgency in her tone. I’ve protected my mom for years, so I can’t simply ignore her because I’m juggling an additional three balls.

My mom replies to my comment, but with my feet thudding the warped stairs, her words are drowned out. My long strides down the hallway are cut in half when I spot two suitcases braced against my parent’s bedroom door. I stare at them in shock, certain they aren’t my mother’s.

Ever since my plans to leave Ravenshoe resurfaced weeks ago, I’ve asked my mom a minimum three times a week to come with me. She never discouraged my wish to leave, but she never accepted my offer either. Now I’m beginning to wonder if she has finally seen sense.

Is that why she wants to talk to me? Is shefinallygoing to leave him?

Deciding to tackle one task at a time, I throw open my bedroom door. The wind is knocked out of my lungs for a second time in under thirty seconds when a flurry of honey-colored hair is the first thing I notice when entering my room.

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