loyalty | s. scola

- PROLOGUE

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.
2006

"Fuck."

Her curse is lost in the noise of her haste to find her jeans. She finds them under a pile of clothes on her chair that she had yet to put away. Her laptop dings with a new text from where it's open on the floor near her bed, and she pulls it, not even bothering to look at the text that she knows is from Carter before shutting it and shoving it into her bag.

"I am so late." She whispers, running her brush through her hair in a few quick strokes.

The rain is pounding on the glass of her window and she forgets to pull it shut. The raindrops are relentless as she runs around her room like a headless chicken looking for her English homework. She finds the tattered copy of Macbeth in her bed and shoves it in her bag on top of her laptop and binders. Her name is hollered between her dad's pounding on her door. "Get up!" he shouts, "You're going to be late for school!"

Ava yanks open her door to find her father standing on the other side of it, already dressed in his usual fitted suit. She frowns as she zips up her backpack. "I thought you were off today."

"Just have to take care of a few things, that's all. If you don't go downstairs, Bella's going to have all the bacon I cooked gone."

She waits until her Dad's footsteps fades down the stairs before turning and going back into her room, pulling on the first shirt she lays her hand on in her drawer. She double checks that she has all of her work, grabs her keys, and shoves her converse on before bounding down the stairs. Almost as soon as she reaches the bottom step, she's greeted by the fading smell of bacon that fills the kitchen. She swipes a piece of bacon off her sister's plate and dodges her retaliating sweat that the fourteen year old throws at her. She pours herself a glass of orange juice just as her dad enters the room, frowning down at his phone.

Without looking up, he chides, "Juice isn't breakfast, Ava."

"I'm in a rush." She mutters over the rim of her glass.

"Lunch money for both of you is on the counter," he reminds, laying his phone down and fixing his tie in the mirror in the hall. As she grabs the money and splits it with her sister, she asks, "Why can't Uncle Sam take care of the loose ends? You said you would take us to the mall tomorrow."

"You can't do that when you're in Cuba, Daddy." Isabella argues. Ava hip bumps her shoulder, "Exactly. Besides, you said he was going to take care of the client down there by himself."

"You two are a united front, I see," Their dad sighs, turning to face them. "Look, girls, I know that sometimes I don't always do the things I promise, but that's going to change. After this year, I'll have all the time in the world with you two. We'll do vacations at the summer house, and I'll take you to every mall in the country if that's what you want."

Ava stares at her dad, unsure. It's not that she doesn't want to believe him. She does. More than anything, she wants to believe he's telling them the truth. But part of her knows he's not. Maybe it's all those trips, all those missed soccer games, or bake sales. She wonders if he truly believes what he's saying, or if she'll be the one driving Isabella to the store for more school supplies tomorrow.

"But you share the firm." She argues, watching him look down at his phone. "Couldn't Uncle Sam do... whatever it is he wants you to do by himself? It's not like he doesn't know how to do it. It's not just your name on the front of the building."

From the look on his face, she knows he's not really registering what she's saying. Especially when he snaps at her. "I don't know, Ava."

When she turns to look at her sister, she knows that Isabella believes him. She sighs, shaking her head and resigning herself to another broken promise.