He nods. “Her doctors say they have four, maybe five months left in them, and that’s assuming she doesn’t pick up B. cepacia, which for someone with CF is pretty much a death sentence. She needs that transplant.”

If I wasn’t convinced before that Gigi is Tanya’s niece, I am now. How many sixteen-year-old girls in Atlanta are facing this exact situation? We must be talking about the same person. We must be.

“And the most screwed-up part is that the insurance will cover the lungs. But only if I can guarantee I have the money for all the therapy and antirejection drugs she’ll need to have after.”

I say to Sebastian what I told Tanya when she told me the same story. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Beatrix sucks in a breath at the curse word, but she’s heard worse, a lot worse from her father, and if there was ever a situation that warranted the f-bomb, this is it. A girl’s life cut short before it’s really begun, on the verge of womanhood, because her father can’t afford the medication to make her lungs stick.

“Tell me about it,” Sebastian says. “And those drugs are just the beginning. There’s testing and rehab, and do you know they even want to charge me for flying the lungs in to the hospital? Why is that something I should have to pay for? If you can’t afford to live in this country, they’re more than happy to just let you die.”

“But Cam’s right, though. This is not the way to go about getting money for her operation.”

My comment seems to anger him. He puffs up his chest and balls his fists, glaring across the coffee table at me. “You think I wouldn’t give her my lungs if I could? You think I wouldn’t rip open my own chest and yank them out myself if I thought it would save her from wasting away? Knowing I’m a match is the worst kind of torture because it doesn’t do either of us any good. I still can’t help her. She’s still going to die without that operation.”

Despite everything, the gun, and the threats, and my son in the enemy’s house across the street, and my daughter strapped to the chair, sympathy rises in my chest for this man. For a sick girl I’ve never met.

“I’m sorry. That must be so hard.”