Guilt crashed over me in waves because I couldn’t even tell my dad the worst part. I’d used family as an excuse to get out of so many May 25th events. Jacoby wouldn’t even believe me if I tried to tell him that my former undercover agent dad was receiving a huge award. I was basically the grad student who called wolf.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said again, truly meaning it. “Jacoby’s a total hard-ass. He told us at the beginning of the year that there was no getting out of our presentation date, no matter what.”

Dad audibly sighed. “Well, I guess Byron’s better than no family at all.”

The mention of Byron made a new suspicion fire off in my head. Byron had been so worried about Dad discovering he was bi in Japan. But when Dad found out years later, he’d taken it unbelievably well. I’d assumed when Byron told me that we’d both underestimated him.

But now, I had to wonder if maybe his easy acceptance had come with time. Like, way more time than we’d initially thought.

The question needled at me. To the point that I had to risk our newfound peace to ask, “Dad? When Byron and I were in high school, did you…”

I trailed off when the doorbell rang. “I have to go. I’m hosting this grad school thing, and the pizzas just got here.”

“All right, if you change your mind about the ceremony, let me know,” Dad said.

“I will,” I promised, even though there was no way of that ever happening.

The doorbell buzzed again as I dropped my phone back in my tote bag.

Wow, the pizza delivery guy was kind of impatient. I rushed to answer the bell, a little surprised that the guy got all the way to the front door. Usually, Wayne intercepted all deliveries and dropped them outside the kitchen with a sharp rap on one of the windows.

But it wasn’t the pizza delivery guy at the front door; it was someone I recognized. Someone I hadn’t seen in a really long time. And he had a small army of guys behind him.

“Phantom?” I asked, barely able to believe my eyes. But it was definitely him. He hadn’t changed much in the ten years since I last saw him. If anything, he looked way more intimidating than I remembered. He wore a black suit and red open collar shirt, with even more tattoos peeking out.

“Coming through,” he said without any greeting whatsoever.

That was all the warning I got before I had to scramble to get out of the way as he barged right on into the house.

“Clap-clap, assholes,” he called over his shoulder to the guys that were with him. “We don’t have all day.”