Chapter 1

The smell of burnt turkey hung in the air, thick and bitter, a perfect match for the mood in our house this Thanksgiving.

Lisa sat across from me at the kitchen table, her face pale, her eyes red.

Kevin, our son, had already gone to his room, sensing the storm between us.

My mother coughed from her bedroom down the hall, a dry, painful sound that scraped at my nerves. Her surgery was next month. Or it was supposed to be.

Lisa' s hands trembled on the tabletop.

"Mike," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I... I did something terrible."

I waited, my own hands clenched into fists under the table.

We didn't have much. A small house in a town that rust forgot, my supervisor pay at the steel mill, Lisa' s part-time waitressing tips. Enough to get by, barely. Enough to save, slowly, for Kevin' s college, for Mom' s medical bills.

"It was Bren," she said, tears finally spilling over. "Bren Kowalski. She invited me to her bar. For a 'friendly' poker game."

Bren. Lisa' s childhood friend. If you could call someone who always seemed to lead Lisa into trouble a friend.

"How much, Lisa?" I kept my voice even, a struggle.

She flinched. "It... it started small. Then it got bigger. Sal Moretti was there. He kept winning."

Sal. Bren' s muscle, a cardsharp. Of course he was there.

"How much?" I asked again, louder this time.

"Twenty-five thousand," she choked out, the words barely audible. "Kevin's college money. The emergency fund. Mom's surgery money. All of it."

She slid off her chair, knelt on the cold linoleum.

"Mike, I'm so sorry. So, so sorry. Please, forgive me."

Twenty-five thousand dollars.

Our future. Gone.

I looked at her, kneeling there, a broken woman. And I felt nothing but a cold, hard knot in my gut.