Prologue

Things that died in the fire…

" J ust go to that fucking bitch, then."

I hear the typical drunken screeching of Mom as soon as I enter the mudroom, shucking off my boots. The crash that follows is also predictable. Dishes clatter against cabinets causing a crescendo of noise as other items dislodged from their neatly placed home topple.

"Dammit, Marlene. Stop this nonsense," my father growls. "U will be here any minute. You promised you were going to stop doing this." The exasperation mixed with despair rings clear.

"I will as soon as you stop fucking your whore," she hisses in return. "And as for our precious son, since when you gave a fuck about him? When you tried to make me get rid of him? Huh? Should I tell 'em about that? How you had to give up Lilly-Pearl Carrington for him and settled for being sheriff instead of a high-powered lawyer in Birmingham like your brothers?"

Dropping my cleats loudly stops the tirade. The silence is deafening as I trudge into the kitchen. The Wednesday night spaghetti clings to the countertop and cabinets my mother has decorated with her fury.

"Hey," I say, looking at the mess watching for the hundred thousandth time the shame that drops over my parents like a cloud right before a summer rain at a softball game.

"Hey, sugah," Mom coos. Barely holding it together, she rushes over to place a soft, drunkenly soggy kiss on my cheek.

"You alright little lady?" I force a smile down into her hopeful, bleary gaze. I already know any type of upset on my part will only ignite the situation like napalm.

"I sure am, sujah plumb now that you're here." She shrugs. "Got a little theatrical with the spaghetti, but there is plenty left."

Hurrying over to the six burner gas stove, she insisted on Daddy upgrading three years ago, she gets busy making us huge plates of pasta loaded with a four meat sauce, topped with freshly grated parmesan cheese. After sitting the plates and freshly baked garlic bread in front of us, her smile trembles as she looks at us both. "Y'all go ahead and eat. I'll clean this mess up."

"Nah, you come eat with us. I got it." Dad grabs her wrist tugging her back. "Sit," he reiterates. "You worked hard on this food, babe. I got it and the dishes."

As usual, she blossoms under his praise. "Alright," she concedes, getting a smaller plate.

"How was practice?" Daddy asks around mouthfuls of prosciutto, Italian sausage, ground beef, and Conecuh sausage laden tomato sauce so thick and yummy we're all going to be threatening a sleep coma.

"Good. I don't think I'm going to get quarterback this year though," I say like watching the other kid outplay me on every call wasn't my worst nightmare just a mere thirty minutes ago.

"Oh, yeah? Why do you say that?" My dad perks up and Mom's brows raise in alarm. I'd been starting quarterback since I was in ninth grade. There's always been a Shelby quarterback since we founded the elite private Shelby Academy back in the late sixties.

"There's a new transfer, Ozymandias. He's good." I leave his last name out, knowing already how that will go. "He's earning his spot." I turn the tines to load up my fork and shove the savory mix of sauce, meat, and pasta into my mouth. I can feel the tension spread between my parents.

The fallacy that every Shelby is wealthy has never been more evident than right now. That is especially true for my father. As the proverbial black sheep of the family, he's barely tolerated, cut off by my uncle Mathias Shelby, Sr. He doesn't fall in line, isn't a racist, corrupt, or depraved. The Shelbys have no use for my father other than the position he holds as sheriff over the small-town epicenter of the origins of our power. Legacy means everything to Shelbys and being able to give the appearance that we still hold all the power in this town means more to the powerful matriarch, Grams in Birmingham and her favorite son, my uncle Mathias.

"Well, just do your best," my dad says. "You'll still get a scholarship," he assures me. "If not, I'll sign over my GI Bill over to you," he adds with a wink.

"I will. I have another whole year of high school," I promise solemnly knowing he'd go hat in hand and ask my uncle Mathias if he had to. But I'd never put Daddy in that position. My uncle is evil incarnate. It's whispered about but my father knows firsthand.

"I got it," I say when Daddy moves to start cleaning.

"You sure? Don't you have homework?" He quirks a brow.

"I did it in the library before practice started," I assure him.

"Well, alright then," he says, looking into the living room before turning back to me. "What your mom said —"

"I know it was the Jack, Dad." I turn away so I don't have to see him lie.

There is a long pause. "You are the best thing that ever happened to me — she is, too. It took me too long to realize that. I fucked up a lot," he sighs. "Some mistakes you can't take back. Hurtin' the people you love is the biggest one." His voice is a gruff whisper right before his heavy hand squeezes my shoulder for a brief moment. "I love your mom and you," he says to my back.

"Love you too, Dad." A soft pat and he's gone.

I run the water scrubbing away the wet from my eyes before attending to the task.

Blaring sirens have me sitting up and throwing on my clothes. There's a fire, and it's the hottest season of the year. Still summer, school started just last week. A drought has made fires more common this year than any other. Pulling on my jeans, boots, and a Henley, I head down the stairs where Dad is already starting the ignition of his Ford F-150.

"Y'all be careful, ya hear?" Mom calls from the porch wrapping her robe tighter as trucks zoom past.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"We will, babe," we call back to her simultaneously. I watch through the rearview window as she waves us off.

"Where's it at this time?" I ask as we head up Highway Seventeen.

"That group home Bishop Smith has those kids at," Dad mutters grimly.

The Shelby Home for Children has been the bane of my father's existence since the place opened five years ago. A charismatic tent revivalist, Bishop Smith got enough of his congregation to shell out funds to build a group home just outside of the county line even though he labeled it after our side of the town. It was said to be an answer to the orphaned and abandoned children of the tri-county area. Only it wasn't that. It was just a means to separate immigrant children from their undocumented parents. Somehow, he also finagled members of the state legislature to give him custody of children in the overburdened foster care system.

"This motherfucker," Dad curses as we come upon the blaze. The entire front of the building is up in flames.

"You no-good sombitch, you motherfucka. Imma kill you, bitch." I know that voice. Turning I see the girl I thought had long since gone from around here when her parents took off with her and her sisters.

"Is that?"

"Kandice Love," my dad says in wonder. "What's she doing here?" Pulling to a stop, he starts cursing. "The fuck is she doing here? She has a family. Where's her sisters — parents?" he asks himself. "Fucking Loves." Shaking his head, he pulls to stop right in front of the deputy, having an incredibly hard time maintaining control of the small spitfire of a girl.

"Let me go, let me go. Let me goooo." Her screams seem to tear through her whole body. She bucks, twisting this way and that, trying futilely to free herself from the massive arms of Deputy Davies. I see the flash of her teeth mere seconds before she rears back and bites the fuck out of his arm.

"Gotdammit," the deputy howls right before she snaps her head back hard smashing into his beak of a nose. He rears back stunned releasing her squirming body dropping her into an unceremonious heap on the ground. Kandie, as everyone around here calls her, stays put all of five seconds before she scrambles up to her feet and darts straight to the fire.

"Fuck. Girl, get back here," Daddy yells, his hard strides eating up the ground behind her. She's fast but just like me, Daddy used to play football and is on her in no time.

Unlike Deputy Davies, he knows how to actually restrain people and has her in a hold that her twisting only makes worse.

"Sheriff," she pleads. "My sister is still in there. Let me go. I know where they have them locked up. In—in the basement, there's a trap door down there. The kids are down there locked up. They sell 'em and do bad things to 'em. Bishop Smith caught us trying to escape once before. He knocked Kerania out and locked me down there for weeks. Please." Breaking off on a sob, the girl crumbles before my father like a wilted flower.

"Kandice." Tone hard he grips her shoulders getting eye level with her. "Tell me exactly where they are. Exactly where." Luckily, the blaze has not reached the back of the building she's indicating the kids are being held. Daddy calls over some more of the volunteer firemen.

"Bring a crowbar and the battering ram," he calls out to one of the men. "There are kids down in that basement." At his words, the atmosphere becomes charged with more than the adrenaline of putting out the blaze. The huddle thins out as the strongest and best men are picked to retrieve the children.

"Kandice, stay here with Ulysses." He nods in my direction. Solemn eyes turn toward me and I nod.

I beckon her over watching as seven men head into the door leading to the basement.

Knowing that some of the children didn't make it out yet, the team intensifies their efforts to stop the fire from spreading to the bottom rear of the building. Another truck arrives and soon the entire structure is being doused. The fire seems to be under control from where I stand with the shivering girl beside me.

A steady trickle of small forms run in our direction away from the smoldering building, the small group building upon itself until there are nearly two dozen kids of various ages and nationalities surrounding us.

The kids are cordoned off to the right of Dad's truck with deputies asking them questions. Some of them point in our direction and say, "Kandie." Stiffening at the mention of her name Kandie's gaze doesn't waver from the back of the building.

"They're coming," I say, not once doubting my dad. He and his guys have rescued all these kids. The fire is nearly out. Four of the first responders emerge carrying babies, one even looks like it's a newborn in a swaddle.

"Mon bèbè," a girl who looks no older than me screams rushing over to Billy Earl Merchant, one of the new guys on the force. Giving her the baby he follows close behind her as a lady paramedic comes over to take her to have the baby checked out. No other mothers come forward to claim the other three.

A county cruiser pulls up in front of us then. Grim faced, Deputy Davies slams out of the car. He steps up to us, grabbing Kandie by the wrist.

"Hey," I shout, grabbing his arm.

"You can go too." He throws me off turning back to Kandie, whose luminous eyes are still trained on the building. "Kandice Love, you are under arrest for suspected arson."

Quicker than I'd have given him credit for Davies zip-ties her small wrists so tight I can see it cutting into her flesh.

"My dad —" The words seize in my throat when the ground beneath us shudders and the entire Shelby Home for Children collapses in on itself.