Chapter 3 3

Marco stood in the kitchen doorway, the leather-bound ledger clutched in his shaking hand. His mother was chopping vegetables for dinner, her back to him. The rhythmic sound of the knife against the cutting board filled the silence between them.

"Mom," he said, his voice smaller than he intended.

She turned, a smile beginning to form until she saw what he was holding. The knife clattered to the countertop. Her face drained of color so quickly that Marco took an instinctive step toward her, afraid she might faint.

"Where did you find that?" she whispered, gripping the edge of the counter.

"Dad's office. There's a false bottom in the desk drawer." Marco set the ledger on the kitchen island between them. He hadn't brought the gun. Something told him that would be pushing too far, too fast. "I was looking for my birth certificate for that genealogy project, and I found... this. And something else."

His mother's eyes darted to the window, then the back door, as if checking for witnesses. A behavior Marco had never seen from her before. She had always been so steady, so composed.

"We shouldn't discuss this now." She wiped her hands on her apron, leaving faint smears of carrot juice like blood stains.

"You know what this is, don't you?" Marco flipped open the ledger. Names, amounts, dates-all in his father's precise handwriting. Some entries had symbols next to them that meant nothing to Marco. Others had been crossed out with a single deliberate line. "This isn't insurance."

His mother moved swiftly across the kitchen and closed the ledger. "Your father will explain when he gets home."

"Dad hasn't been home in three days, Mom. That's not normal, even for his 'business trips.'" Marco made air quotes around the words, the gesture more accusatory than he'd planned.

His mother flinched. "He's handling a complicated situation."

"Is he in trouble?" Marco pressed, watching her reaction closely.

A flash of fear crossed her face before she shuttered her expression. "Why would you think that?"

"Because I found a gun with the ledger." The words hung in the air between them. "And because you look terrified."

His mother's shoulders sagged. For a moment, Marco thought she might finally tell him the truth. Instead, she straightened her spine and reclaimed her composure with visible effort.

"Your father will explain when he gets home," she repeated, her voice barely above a whisper. "Until then, put everything back exactly where you found it. And Marco," she gripped his arm with unexpected strength, "don't mention this to anyone. Not your friends, not at school. No one."

"Mom, you're scaring me."

"Good," she said, and the coldness in her voice was so unlike her that Marco took a step back. "A little fear will keep you safe until your father returns."

She released his arm and turned back to her chopping, the conversation clearly over. But her hands weren't steady anymore, and when Marco glanced out the window, he noticed she had closed the blinds at some point-something she never did during daylight hours because she loved the natural light.

That night, Marco returned the ledger to its hiding place, careful to position the false bottom exactly as he'd found it. The gun was cold and heavy in his hand, more real than anything in his life felt at that moment. Before replacing it, he checked the magazine. It was fully loaded.

Whatever his father was into, it wasn't insurance fraud or creative accounting. Men who kept loaded guns hidden in secret compartments weren't worried about audits.

From his bedroom window, Marco noticed a car he didn't recognize parked across the street. A dark sedan with tinted windows. As he watched, the driver's side window lowered slightly, just enough for the ember of a cigarette to glow in the darkness.

Someone was watching their house.

Marco let the curtain fall back into place and sat on his bed, his phone in hand. He scrolled through his contacts, wondering who he could possibly talk to about this. His thumb hovered over Ellie's name. She was smart, level-headed. Maybe she'd have some insight.

But his mother's warning echoed in his mind: Don't mention this to anyone.

He set the phone aside and lay back on his bed, staring at the ceiling. The soft blue of his walls, the astronomy posters, and the shelf of science trophies-everything in his room spoke of a normal teenage life. But now it all felt like props on a stage, a carefully constructed fiction.

Tomorrow he'd try again with his mother. Push harder for answers. Because whatever the truth was, Marco was certain of one thing: his entire life had been built on lies, and the foundation was beginning to crumble beneath him.