Chapter 1

Everyone in town called my father a rabid dog. And my mother held his leash.

He was a mob enforcer. She was a police detective.

She told him she couldn't love a man on the wrong side of the law. So he went undercover and brought the whole organization down with him.

While he was in prison, my mother was targeted for revenge.

They tortured her for three days and three nights. She never broke.

So they injected something directly into her brain.

It turned her into a psychopath.

When my father found out, he didn't say a word — but that same night, he broke out.

He put over a thousand cuts into the men who had hurt her, then turned himself in again.

He earned his way out after that. From convict to criminal investigator.

He married my mother. They had me.

Everyone called it a love story for the ages.

Then a beautiful woman showed up at our house.

She stood there, visibly pregnant, and looked down at me.

"Your mother is mentally ill. Your father has had enough of her."

"I'm going to be your new mom. And I'll give you a little brother."

My mother heard every word.

One second she was perfectly still. The next, she had a knife.

She cut open the woman's stomach.

She dropped something at my feet, then looked at me with the softest smile I had ever seen.

"Don't worry, baby. Mommy won't let anyone threaten your place."