Dad’s been gone for four years. The pain had dulled a little around the edges, but the emptiness remained. It was the fine, hot rage I felt toward him that freaked me out. Dad was never perfect. I’d known that for a long time. After Mom died, he’d fallen down a rabbit hole of his own making. But this shitshow he left on my hands was another story and made it hard to forgive and forget.

Shit, I wasn’t allowed to forget. The bank wouldn’t let that happen.

I was clueless that my finances and the gym were in so much trouble until the day I found my dad hunched over his desk. The day Dad told me he’d mismanaged my money—a toxic mixture of bad investments and gambling—and that he’d remortgaged the gym to try to cover it.

A month later, Dad was dead. Heart attack, the stress and shame of what he’d done catching up to him in the worst of ways. And I became the new owner of Lights Out, and a mountain of debt.

My jaw locked tight, the rage hitting me again. I wanted to get up, walk away, and never look back. From outside the glass walls of the office came the sound of juvenile laughter. The junior group was practicing capoeira, one of the gym’s newest offerings. The classes were all full, but only half of the boys could afford to pay. And while it was my prerogative to turn them away, I knew I’d never do that. This gym was their lifeline in a world that would easily drain their joy and leave them empty shells of their former selves.

“That’s a pretty nasty expression you got going.” Carlos stood by the door I’d made the mistake of leaving open. A grin split his face. “You find a rash or something?”

“Yeah, right under my balls,” I replied without heat. “You want to take a look?”

“I’ll leave that to your lady friends.”

Carlos knew I hadn’t been with any lady friends, as he put it, in a while. Don’t get me wrong—the opportunities were there, I just hadn’t wanted to take them. I didn’t have the stomach for… well, anything lately. First with Dad’s fucking debts, then with Jake—I didn’t want to think about Jake.

Carlos pushed away from the door and dropped his ass in the chair opposite my desk. “So,” he prompted, “what’s with the face?”

I rubbed the back of my aching neck. “The usual. Money.”