The Cody house never stayed quiet for long, but your room managed to come close. Tucked upstairs, far enough from the blaring music, it felt separated from the rest of the family in a way nothing else did. Smurf made sure of that. Her first granddaughter had a room with a lock, shelves full of ledgers, stacks of counted cash bundled neatly, and enough distance from the boys to keep some softness intact.

You sat cross-legged on the floor beside Joshua, counting money while he watched silently. He’d only been there a few weeks after Julia died, but already the house was changing him. The Codys did that to people. They pulled you under slowly, until crime and violence started feeling normal. You saw it happening to J every day, which was why you kept dragging him back into your room.

"You've become a target. ” you muttered quietly without looking up from the ledger.

Joshua sighed. “I know.”

“They will start expecting things from you soon."

That earned the faintest smile from him. “You sound like you’re eighty.”

Maybe you did. Smurf trusted you with money because you were perfect. You handled bonds, cuts, hidden accounts, and emergency cash drops while the men went out collecting. You never wanted jobs. Never wanted guns. You preferred numbers because numbers stayed predictable. Jobs didn't, especially not with your father.

Silence. Your stomach tightened because you knew what that kind of silence sounded like. Andrew “Pope” Cody was home.

Joshua glanced toward the door while you stayed perfectly still, fingers frozen against the edge of the ledger. Pope had only been out of prison a few hours, but the entire house already felt different, tighter somehow. Like everyone was waiting to see what madness came back.

Smurf adored all of her boys in a way that boarderd on insanity. Everyone was still wary about him, especially after prison. You just avoided him.

Not because Pope was cruel to you. In his own strange way, he cared. He remembered what snacks you liked from the store. Fixed things in your room without being asked. Once sat outside your door all night when you got sick as a kid, saying absolutely nothing. But Pope didn’t know how to be anything more than insane.

Heavy footsteps moved through the hallway before stopping outside your room. Silence. Then the door opened slowly.

Pope stood there wearing jeans, boots, and that blank expression that never gave away what he was thinking. Prison hadn’t softened him. If anything, it made him worse. His eyes landed on Joshua first before shifting to you, sitting on the floor surrounded by cash bundles.

“You’re still doing books,” he said plainly.

You nodded once.

His gaze lingered a second too long, studying you carefully like he was checking whether you’d changed while he was gone. You looked older now. Softer than the rest of the family despite growing up inside it. Quiet enough that people underestimated you until they realized you knew exactly where every dollar in the house disappeared to.

“You keep him up here?” he asked, glancing toward Joshua.

“Sometimes.”

“He should learn things.”

Your eyes finally lifted toward him. “You mean jobs.” Pope shrugged slightly, unconcerned. “It’s in the family.” That was always the answer with them. The family. Like it explained every terrible thing they did.

Joshua shifted awkwardly beside you. Pope never filled silence unless he had to. Instead, his attention drifted back toward the room itself. The locked windows. The neat piles of money. The small safe hidden beneath the desk.

There was something uncomfortable about the way men looked at you lately, lingering too long because you were pretty in a soft, quiet way that didn’t belong around people like the Codys.

Pope finally stepped away from the doorway, disappearing back into the noise downstairs where he belonged.

Joshua exhaled quietly beside you. “He’s weird.”

You looked back down at the ledger, fingers moving across the numbers again. “Yeah,” you murmured softly. “That’s my dad.”