Kana shook his head hard. No, his father wouldn’t be in that restaurant making Samoan half-moon pies. Wouldn’t be giving that booming laugh and pulling over a stepstool so Kana could help.

Dad was dead. Gone.

Kana leaned against the building and scowled at his feet. Big feet.

“I can’t believe how fast you’re growing.”

Dad had said that too.

Would he even know me now? He’d grown a lot since his father died.

Because of that woman.

Anger roused inside him. Dad had died because the owner of the LA restaurant wanted him, always calling him her “handsome chef” and touching him. But after they’d done the sex stuff, she’d changed and got all mean and called Dad names and hit him, even though he never yelled back or anything.

In the car that night, she’d shouted at Dad and slapped him real hard. The car had gone sideways and—

Kana’s belly lurched, and he put his hand over his mouth. Heat ran over his skin, then cold, like he’d fallen in the icy stream outside Mako’s cabin.

Don’t puke.

He pulled in long breaths and fought off the sickness. He wasn’t a little kid anymore, not like when Dad died. He’d been in foster care, been on the LA streets. He was tough now, not a wimp.

He walked on.

“Hey, Bull. Bull.”

He jumped—because Gabe was yelling at him. Bull’s my name now.

Bull. Frigging good name, right? He puffed up his chest to look bigger. Yeah, by the time he was grown up, he’d be as big as the bull moose that Mako had shot last week. The one that had given Kana—no, Bull—his new name.

He raised his hand to show he’d heard Gabe but didn’t move. Did he want to hang out with his kinda-sorta foster brother—or the other two?

Mako called them a team. A-huh. Bull wasn’t so sure.

Okay, maybe the four of them had fought back against the foster home perv, even though they hardly knew each other. And when Mako said he’d bring them to Alaska and raise them, they’d all agreed. Better than being homeless on the streets, right?

It still didn’t make them no team or a family either.

“C’mon, Bull!” Dark-haired Gabe, a year older than Bull, motioned toward Caz and Hawk who were surrounded by big-ass teens. The pushy jerks weren’t a gang, though. Not here in bumfuck Seward.

Bull didn’t move. Did he want to get in a fight for the other boys in the sarge’s log cabin?

Gabe was okay. Bossier than anything, but he made up good games—and played fair. Made sure they all played fair.