My name is Rory Carter. I was four and a half, and the half mattered because four-year-olds took afternoon naps, but four-and-a-half-year-olds knew how to keep secrets and tell when adults were lying.

By five o'clock that evening, our tiny world had completely overturned.

Mom had taken the five thousand four hundred dollars straight to the bank on Clark Street, clutching her purse to her chest with both arms as if every pedestrian on the sidewalk were an undercover thief. She paid three months of overdue rent in crisp cash, paid off our electric bill, and gave the landlord two hundred dollars extra just so he would replace the rusted deadbolt on our front door.

Then, she took me to the grocery store.

For the first time in my life, Mom didn't look at the clearance rack of dented cans. She didn't use a calculator on her phone to add up every nickel. She bought whole milk, fresh strawberries, roast chicken, potatoes, and two boxes of macaroni with the real cheese packets.

When we got back to our third-floor walk-up, the apartment smelled of roasting chicken and butter.

Mom sat at our small laminate kitchen table, watching me eat a bowl of warm soup. But she wasn't smiling. Every time a car door slammed on the street below, or the radiator clanked against the wall, she jumped, her eyes darting toward the window.

"We have to leave, Rory," she whispered, twisting her cheap silver ring around her finger. "We have to pack our bags tonight and take the Greyhound bus to your aunt’s house in Ohio."

I stopped chewing my potato. "Why, Mom? We have groceries now. You paid the rent."

"You don't understand, baby," she said, leaning across the table, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. "Men like Vincent Kane don't do favors for free. He used us to humiliate David Sterling. Sterling is a coward, but his brother-in-law is Frank Moretti. Moretti runs the private logistics across the docks. When Moretti hears that Kane shook down Sterling over an unpaid waitress, there will be blood on these streets."

She stood up, pulling two battered duffel bags from the closet, tossing in our worn sweaters, jeans, and socks.

"We are little people, Rory," Mom continued, her voice rising with an edge of panic. "When giants start fighting in an alley, the ants get stepped on. We have to be gone before sunrise."

Suddenly, three heavy, deliberate knocks rattled the front door.

Mom froze. A stack of folded shirts slipped from her hands, scattering across the linoleum.

The knocks came again. One. Two. Three. Precise. Not frantic, but entirely unyielding.

Mom reached for the heavy cast-iron skillet on the stove, her face pale as bone. She pushed me behind her back, into the narrow bathroom, whispering fiercely, "Stay in the tub, Rory. Lock the door. Do not come out no matter what you hear."

"Mom—"

"Get in the tub!"

I pulled the bathroom door shut until only a crack remained.

Mom crept toward the front door, holding the skillet raised above her shoulder. "Who is it?" she called out, her voice cracking.

"Open the door, Ms. Carter," a deep, rumbling voice answered from the hallway. It wasn't Vincent Kane. It was Mr. Briggs. "Mr. Kane sent an escort."

"Tell him we’re leaving!" Mom cried through the wood. "We don't want any trouble! I took the pay he handed me, and that’s it! We’re leaving Chicago tonight!"

There was a brief pause on the other side of the wood.

"You can’t leave tonight, ma'am," Briggs said calmly through the door. "Two black Dodge Chargers just parked across the street from your fire escape. Moretti’s crew from the docks. They’ve been tracking your phone since you left the bank."