“I do, but arson never really looks good on a résumé,” Nick shot back, sinking into the familiar sarcastic banter that was often the truest bond between brothers. “Now, sit down and let me do my best Grey’s Anatomy impersonation and get that knife out.”

Zack sat down carefully, his left leg straight out before him.

“You know pretty much everyone dies on that show, right?” Zack said. “Except Bokhee. She’ll be the last one standing.”

Nick laughed. “I didn’t think you watched.”

“Are you kidding me? I live in suburbia, and Steph loves it. Of course I watch.”

“Of course you do,” Nick said, and laughed quietly as the first faint sounds of sirens appeared on the cool night air. “Now, shut up and let me work.”

As his brother pulled the knife and bandaged the wound, Zack watched Stephen Flores, sympathy for what he’d gone through welling up inside him. Of all of the images that would linger for years as fading memories, it was the one of a son, standing with a gun, having avenged the murder of his father, that would remain with Zack until the end of his days.

Part X What Goes Around

Part X
What Goes Around

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter
FORTY-SEVEN

two weeks later

1000 est

Zack sat in his kitchen and stared out into the backyard, wondering when the first snowfall would arrive. The cold front that had swept through on the night of the assault had ushered in what seemed to be an early winter, although who really knew with the erratic weather in the region. The forecasts for the past three years had been especially inconsistent, so much so that Zack thought his five-year-old, Addison, might make more accurate predictions with her Magic 8 Ball.

Steph walked into the kitchen, perspiration glistening on her toned body, her blond hair tied back in a ponytail. Her lean and hard figure always sent his pulse racing, and he asked, “How was the run?”

“Good. Did a forty-five-minute intervals one. That Olivia instructor is ruthless. She literally looks like she’s floating when she runs,” she said as she refilled her water bottle from the filtered dispenser on the refrigerator. “But I do love this treadmill, and when that quad finally heals, you will too,” she said, referring to the Peloton treadmill he’d purchased the week before the siege.

She came over to the kitchen table and sat next to him, her left hand reaching for his right one. “How’s the leg, anyhow?”

“It’s good. There’s no pain, I can put my weight on it, walk around, whatever I want, but they said to refrain from any physical activity for another few weeks,” Zack said and squeezed her hand.

“Good,” she said, a physical therapist who’d graduated near the top of her program from the University of Pittsburgh, one of the best physical therapy schools in the country.