Can't promise that things won't be broken but I swear that I will never leave. (Sleeping with Sirens, James Dean and Audrey Hepburn)

“I make a good living on this apartment building but it’s not going to be enough.”

“Why don’t you sell it? Or do you want to murder our family too?”

“There’s no need to get smart.”

I rolled my eyes again.

“It’s smarter to make money off the apartment rather than just cash it in.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Do you see how much more productive it is to just answer my questions than be sarcastic and leave me in the dark about your rationale?”

“You really are smart, aren’t you?” He asked it sincerely rather than sarcastically as if he was just beginning to realize that Tommy hadn’t just been bragging about her daughter.

I shrugged modestly. I knew better than to boast to a rocket scientist about my intelligence, that could only come back to haunt me.

We went to prison to see them all before we left. I knew we were going to strategize and make plans, or at least get direction from Senior, but I just wanted to see them and say goodbye. I felt pretty confident that my mother would be out soon enough but at the same time I knew it wasn’t really safe for any of us out here in the big bad world until our debts were paid.

“Hi, Honey,” my mother whispered in an unflattering orange jumpsuit.

“Mom,” I whispered into the phone with my hand to the glass that separated us.

She was in a different wing than the boys. From what I could gather from the letters to follow the hardest part of all this was being away from my father.

“I’m sorry you have to see me in here, Honey.”

I shook my head.

“It’s going to be okay,” I promised.

She smiled with pain in her eyes and nodded. “Rider will take good care of you.”

I nodded, she nodded, but for all the nodding neither of us felt confident about the looming days and weeks and months and years to come.

Visiting the boys was different. Uncle Rider sat beside me while Senior, Uncle Tony, and my father laced the opposite side of the table. They joked and kidded. They were all smiling and laughing. Uncle Tony was twitching a bit but once he got back to his cell and interjected a bit of white gold into his veins he would be alright. My father had already taken the baggie I slipped him during our hug and snorted a little in the bathroom.

“Take good care of my girl,” my father instructed Rider as he held my hand over the table.

“She’ll take care of him,” Senior corrected.