Frank made crude, bourbon-soaked jokes at holiday dinners about how Dean needed to apply “a firm, disciplinary hand.” And Dean himself spent vast sums of money that never appeared in our accounts, vanished for mysterious weekend “conferences,” and came home smelling of cheap gin and floral perfumes that weren’t mine.

I had spent half a decade shrinking myself to fit the space they allowed me.

But tonight, the illusion shattered along with the glass.

Two months earlier, after a “accidental” shove that sent me crashing into the frame of the kitchen pantry, my older brother, Marcus, had visited. Marcus wasn’t just family.

He was a federal DEA agent, a man who spent his working life reading the small tells that people like Dean never thought to hide.

He took one look at the fading yellow bruise on my shoulder, pulled me onto the back porch away from the house’s listening walls, and pressed a heavy, matte-black keychain into my palm.