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trouble if you tell the truth.” Joje hadn’t broken eye contact with Adam, even with his display of power over Blake.
    “My dad sleeps on the couch. At night.” Adam looked down as if ashamed. “We just, we’re supposed to keep our routine.”
    Joje looked at Blake. The sense of excitement, of violence bubbling at the surface, seemed difficult to assuage.
    Blake kept his voice steady. “Your mom, earlier today, asked me to sleep with her tonight. We’re turning over a new leaf.”
    He looked up at Jenna, who stood halfway up the stairs, massaging her head from the headache apparently encroaching. “That’s right,” she said.
    “I think you should sleep down here, Bwake,” Joje said, his eye blinking, mouth twitching. “As much as I’d enjoy watching you sleep together, I can’t accept a lie.”
    “I’m not lying.”
    “Right now, I trust your son a lot more than I trust you. If he says you sleep on the couch, that’s where you sleep. I’ll stay here with you. Dwew will watch over Jenna.”
    “I am not sleeping in the same room as him!” Jenna spit the last word out like it carried poison.
    Joje was smiling now. “Of course you are. And I know we didn’t discuss this earlier, but we will be restraining you at night. For security reasons. I’m sure you understand.”
    Jenna looked at Blake, eyes pleading. “Don’t let them do this.”
    “I’m drawing the line here,” Blake said. “We stay together at night. Adam too.”
    “Your call, but if you break a rule, I break a rule,” Joje said.
    Drew continued up the stairs toward Jenna, who fell back, bumping into the railing. She began crawling up the stairs backward. “Stay away from me! You stay away!”
    “You can’t do this!” Blake said, moving toward the stairs.
    “Drew?” Joje said.
    Drew turned back around on the stairs, a sentinel standing guard. He was as big as any bouncer Blake had seen.
    Blake paused on the bottom step. “If you touch her—”
    “No one will touch anyone. You have it all wrong,” Joje said.
    “Just here to observe,” Drew said, a complete lack of emotion on his face.
    “He’ll be in the same room as her, that’s all. Watching,” Joje said. “Adam, you’ll be restrained but on your own tonight. Most nights, I imagine.”
    Adam nodded as if this made perfect sense.
    “Why don’t you bring your dad’s toiletries down so we can avoid another outburst,” Joje said.
    Adam scampered up the stairs, giving Drew a wide berth.
    Jenna’s eyes burned down at Blake, and it wasn’t from the alcohol.
    Joje smiled. “Have a good night.”

7
    Adam lay atop his mattress set against the bed railings that had yet to be put together. His jaw ached from the grin on his face. His arm was bent backward, handcuffed to a bedpost, a bedpost as portable as a hockey stick.
    What an idiot, Adam thought.
    When Drew had pulled the handcuffs from their duffle bag, Adam hadn’t complained or put up a fight. Instead he posed a question.
    Where do you want me.
    With no bed put together and his room looking like the aftermath of a garage sale, Drew had put the question back on Adam.
    Just like Adam knew he would.
    After cuffing him, Drew asked why his room was the only one not set up. Adam’s reply had been planned, as had the response it garnered from the giant albino.
    To piss off my dad.
    Drew’s smirk revealed everything Adam had hoped for. Make him think they were coconspirators, on the same side. Hell, maybe they were.
    It had been a relief to discover Drew would be the one watching his mom and him. Joje scared him. Not because of the kidnapping; Adam was actually looking forward to the “pwoject”—it would at least make for an interesting end to his summer. Adam simply couldn’t read Joje, not like he could other people, and that was more frightening than any amount of threats or hints of violence.
    Adam had a gift, a way to know what someone would do before they did it, to predict their reactions, foresee their