Summary:
Grace wakes on an unfamiliar couch after an argument with her sister Rebecca. She apologizes for overstepping boundaries and learns that Rebecca was attacked by members of a pharmaceutical company board. Determined to protect her family, Grace creates a careful plan that leads her to confront her biological father, an assassin. She blackmails him into eliminating the board members who threatened her loved ones. After the killings, Grace prepares to disappear, but Rebecca finds her and insists on joining her in hiding.
Here is your Story: My Sister Helped Me Kill the Board
Grace awoke the next morning on an unfamiliar lumpy couch. Couch surfing was nothing new to her. She had done it plenty of times before. This couch, though, was one she did not know. As someone who had spent plenty of nights on secondhand furniture, she could tell it had once been a decent piece, maybe even expensive. The cushions had gone flat, and the whole thing looked ready for the curb.
A familiar voice cut through the quiet. “Grace… you awake?”
She opened her eyes, still groggy. Becca sat cross-legged beside her. Whatever nightmare Grace had cooked up in her head, the one where Becca pushed her away again, had not happened. Grace gave a sleepy smile. Becca answered with a nervous one of her own.
Good. Becca still wanted to be sisters. Grace was not going to mess that up twice.
“I was stupid,” Grace said.
Becca opened her mouth, but Grace kept going. “No, Becca, seriously. I was a fucking idiot. You have been saying since we started sharing a bed that you wanted me fully dressed around you. And there is no reason you should have to tell me you are gay or bi or whatever. You know? I want to be your safe space.
I always have. We are not biologically related. You think I am cute. You know I am straight. You respected my boundaries and you never made a move. You did everything right. Rebecca… I am sorry. Forgive me. I just want things to be like they were. You are my best friend, and I see you as my sister.”
Becca blurted out what she had really come to say. “I was attacked by the board of the company.”
It took a second for the words to land. Then Grace sat straight up, suddenly wide awake. “They what? What did they do to you?”
Rebecca hesitated. “Um… a lot of stuff, honestly. It was confusing. The way they talk to you… you were right. They break you down. It was only one man. But after a few minutes it was like I was not myself anymore. It was horrible.”
Grace put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “If they are coming after you, they are crossing a new line. And if they will hurt you, they will hurt Tobias or Mom and Dad.” She paused, then smiled with fresh confidence. “I am going to fix this.”
She threw off the blanket, stood up, and headed for the hall closet. She pulled on her sweater. Rebecca’s eyes went wide. “Grace! Do not be an idiot! You cannot storm in there and fight the entire board!”
Grace looked at her like she had grown a third eye. “What? What would make you think I would do that? You are the collegiate athlete. I am the genius. If anyone is going on a killing spree it is you. I am the one who makes the careful plan.”
Rebecca thought about it. “Okay. Where are you going, then? You literally just stopped to put on a sweater.”
Grace raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, because Dad is a cheapskate, it is the dead of winter, and the thermostat is stuck at sixty-two degrees. This place is a freezer. I am going upstairs to sit at your computer and do research.”
Rebecca nodded slowly. “Okay. You are going to look up the board, figure out a plan, and then… this will not be quick. You are talking about ten or fifteen guys, plus the layout of a whole skyscraper, plus actual heist planning.”
Grace nodded. “Definitely. This will take at least ten hours of just reading.”
“And bathroom breaks and eating,” Rebecca added. “So probably until bedtime.”
Grace started up the stairs. “Oh, and do not worry. I will call that dickhead Terry at the college and tell him you are dropping out of that stupid chess tournament.” She chuckled. “You know, at the start of this story your ego would never have let you walk away from a challenge just because some guy is a sexist pig.”
Old Wounds
She glanced back. Grace looked sheepish. Rebecca sighed. “Seriously? You want me to set an alarm so you can take a break from saving the family to go beat some dude at chess for no reason?”
Grace nodded. “Yes please.”
“Fine,” Rebecca muttered. Then something else occurred to her. “Wait, why did you go out of your way to mention a temperature in Fahrenheit? There are only a few countries that still use it.”
Grace did not even slow down. “We are in America.”
Rebecca watched her sister disappear up the stairs. After a moment she said out loud, “What a fuckin’ nerd.”
Her dad’s voice came from the kitchen. “Girls! I made pancakes! I am short on batter, so you are only getting two apiece.”
Rebecca thought about the night before. She had already forgiven Grace, but still… “Grace is busy! She said I can have hers!”
Grace’s feet crunched on gravel as she walked up the driveway. It was after dark, which was exactly when she needed it to be. She checked her phone’s GPS and looked up at an ordinary house in an ordinary middle-class suburb. So this was where he had been living. She had known almost nothing about him until three days ago, only the hatred she had carried her whole life. Now she wondered how it would feel to see his face again.
She knocked hard. A man in his early forties opened the door. She looked at him and felt nothing like the old rage. He seemed smaller than she remembered, almost fragile. After a few months with her new family she understood what he had never had and clearly did not want.
“You are my sperm donor,” she said. Her voice was cold and flat.
He looked her over and grinned. “Damn. I do not know which one you are, but you turned out. I do not want a relationship and I do not want to rekindle anything. Sorry, kid.”
He started to shut the door. Grace stuck her foot in the frame. He frowned and opened it again.
“I do not want that either,” she said. “I already have a mother and father. They adopted my brother and me yesterday. It was a little informal, but I am very good with computers. We have new social security numbers and new birth certificates that list our actual parents. Same nonexistent county, same nonexistent hospital, same nonexistent doctor.”
The man snorted. “That is stupid. The DMV will know the county does not exist. Why not just pick a real OBGYN who has been around a while and forge something so she thinks she delivered you?”
Grace blinked. That was actually smarter than what she had done. She pushed the irritation down and kept going. “I have my reasons. I know a little about you too.”
“Congratulations. Get your foot out of my door.”
“You need a new liver,” she said. “And you are an alcoholic. Yet you have been approved for a transplant.”
He went still. “I have been sober the required six months. The board knows about my history.”
“They do not know about your schizophrenia,” Grace said quietly. “I checked.”
The color drained from his face. “How did you—”
“Your stupid ass just told me. And it was an easy guess. You are an assassin. You get vulnerable women pregnant. You drink enough to drown in it. Alcohol can stand in for psych meds. You needed to stay sharp for jobs, so you drank.”
She leaned closer. “If the transplant board finds out you should be on meds that are bad for your liver, plus the suicide risk and the fact that you are barely sober, that new liver is gone. I checked your labs. You are jaundiced.”
He reached behind his back for the gun he kept there. Grace spoke first. “I would not do that. Everything is set to email every transplant board in the world if I do not check in. You will not get the liver. My new family is out of state on vacation. There is no trail. You have nothing to threaten me with.”
He studied her for a moment. “What is to stop me from coming after them later?”
“You are a professional. Shooting up an entire family would bring too much heat. You would not take that risk.”
He let out a slow breath. “You want someone dead. My timeline is until Monday morning. Who?”
Grace handed him a folder. “The entire board of directors for a major pharmaceutical company. They are rich, they have security, and they have criminal connections. Have fun.”
His eyes widened as he flipped through the pages. “You have lost your mind. There is no way—”
“You are about to lose your liver. It is Friday night. I will be waiting for good news on Monday. We will not speak again.”
She turned to leave. He called after her. “You know, I am not getting any younger. Maybe I would not mind having my daughter in my life after all.”
Grace paused without looking back. “It is a shame you never paid child support. You sure made enough of us.”
She walked away into the dark.
Loose Ends
Grace watched the news in the middle of the night. Eleven wealthy executives had been killed over the last few days. The house was empty. She had sent her new parents, Rebecca, and Tobias out of state. One board member was still missing. Her sperm donor was dead, killed by organized crime. The plan had run its course.
She slipped on the backpack she had kept beside her all weekend. A few changes of clothes were all she needed. She was going to disappear. It was the only way left to keep everyone safe.
She opened the front door. Rebecca stood on the porch, calmly eating an apple.
“Eleven pharma executives and an assassin died,” Rebecca said. “Why do I feel like you had something to do with that?”
Grace sighed. That was a nice touch.”
“I know, right? I was standing there forever.”
“There was a reason I was going into hiding. I am going to disappear. You need to stay off the radar until—”
“Until they think you are dead,” Rebecca finished. “I followed the smell of gasoline and found your pre-wrecked car. I am coming too.”
“No. You are not. This only works if nobody knows what happened to me.”
Rebecca put a hand on her shoulder. “Mom and Dad have Tobias now. We are grown. They do not know anything about this. I do. That kind of wrecks your whole plan, does it not?”
Grace was quiet for a moment. “For eighteen years you lived alone. You raised a brother but you never had a real friend. I had friends, but none like you. So I guess we need to steal another body from the morgue. That is not too much trouble, is it?”
