"I don't know what to do, but I know I have to leave," I say rapid-fire over the phone to my best friend in Paris. Well, technically, Thyra lives in New York, but she's on exchange to Paris right now, lucky duck. She even got a scholarship to go there for practically nothing. "What do you think I should do?"

Romeo is curled up at my feet, having decided that he likes me more than Antonio. Probably because Antonio feeds him dry dog food while I sneak him rib bones with most of the meat gnawed off, but still. I'd like to think that the dog at least is a good judge of character. Right? Or, I'm just losing my mind to the point that I'm talking to a dog and desperate for canine approval.

God help me. Heavenly Father, I don't know if I can do this.

"I think you should... Hello, Christina? Are you even listening to me?" she asks, her voice rising in annoyance. "Wait, I can't even keep up. Please tell the story again, more slowly, of how you ended up in a drug dealer's house, because of your ex-boyfriend being FBI!"

"Is somebody listening to your phone call?" I ask.

"No."

"Then why are you whisper-shouting?"

"I don't know... It just feels like that's the kind of thing you should whisper, in case the police hear you."

"You're in public?"

"No, my apartment, but I don't know..."

"Don't the French police... speak French?"

"They could also speak English!" I smile. Classic Thyra.

"Yeah, well, somehow I doubt they care about some gang member in America."

"You said he's a gang leader, and he's Antonio Cavalli. I'm studying criminal forensics, of course, I know who this guy is. He's famous."

"Famous? You make him sound like the lead singer of Maroon 5."

"Does he also sing in a falsetto?"

"That's beside the point." I don't think I've ever heard Antonio sing, but that's a different story. "He's famous?"

"He's, sorry, what's the word... Notorious. For brokering territory disputes, drug trade, cartels, casinos, you get it. Last year he walked out of Monte Carlo five million dollars richer, but between you and me, it wasn't because he's really good at baccarat. It's because he did a trade there."

Shifting on my bed with the phone pressed to my ear, I scribble down Monte Carlo 5 million dollars? "A trade?"

"Yeah, a deal. He supplied someone with cocaine, and they supplied him with a hefty check."

"Drug dealers use checks?"

"Well, a hefty duffel bag of cash. Make that... ten duffel bags."

"Yeah, I can only imagine." I can't imagine. Having five million dollars so easily? I've never even had ten thousand dollars in cash at any one time? Five million seems like an impossible sum to me. "That's some Ocean's Eleven heist."

"Oh, well, hardly a heist. More like a legitimate business exchange."

"Right." The thought of Antonio Cavalli, wearing a suit and tie--well, that part is easy to picture--and holding a briefcase, shaking hands with someone in a casino in Europe, James Bond style, makes me want to laugh or cry. "Well, enough about me... and my crazy life. How's Paris been treating you, Thyra? It feels like we haven't talked in forever."

"Well, it's been great..." She launches into a description that makes me want to drop everything and fly to Paris right now. "You know what, you'd love it here. It's just so beautiful. Gosh. I met the cutest guy here."

"On exchange? A native?" Trust Thyra to meet a guy anywhere. Back in high school, she had to fight off the guys. As for me, I was always redirecting them toward her, at least until I met Lucas. But maybe I just settled for him. Maybe he was what I thought I wanted because I was bored and lonely and waiting for someone to soothe the sting of rejection and the listlessness of waiting. Waiting for the right guy to come along. But is Antonio the right guy? "Send me a pic."

"Here you go." My phone dings. She's right. This guy is as gorgeous as all get out.

"Wow, he's hot," I say. "What's his name? Tell me all about him."

"Gladly," she says. "Right after you let me work out your situation with Antonio."

I groan. "Really?"

"Come on, Christina! This is the most exciting thing to happen in your life in a while." Ouch. While my life before him wasn't exactly something to write home about, I wouldn't say he's the Prince Charming who swept me off of my feet into a whole new life of crime and passion. Well. Maybe I would say that. But not out loud. "What did he say to you again?"

"He said, I don't know," I say, as though I haven't memorized every word he said to me on that mini-golf course. I study my black-painted toenails, accessorized with silver star-shaped stickers. "He said that he wanted to keep me in his life. But what does that mean, even? I mean, I've known the guy for two months, and the whole time he was just using me to make his dad mad. I know he's... I don't. Actually. I don't know if he's changed and I don't know if he's still using me except maybe his dad isn't mad anymore and maybe he won't want to keep me around..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Christina, please, take a deep breath in," Thyra commands. "Now exhale."

I sniff, following her commands. "Sorry. It's been a rough few months."

"Sounds pretty insane," she says. "Because you sound like you're twelve years old again doodling his last name next to your first name and wondering if he likes you or he likes you, likes you."

"I do not!" I say. I want to throw a pillow at her, but she's all the way on the other side of the Atlantic, so I settle for throwing a pillow across from me, where it bounces harmlessly off of the painting on the wall, knocking it askew. I frown. Another one of those literal holes in the wall? Why does one house need so many holes in the walls? "I never had a crush when I was twelve, anyways."

"That's besides the point. Are you good, bestie?" Her voice is lilting, teasing.

I take a few deep breaths, sucking in air like I'm drowning. She's right, I sound crazy and I do sound like a pre-teen with her first crush.

But I don't know how to get over this. I don't see a way out of this panic, because I don't see how to escape this fear coursing through me, at the thought of my future bearing down on me, crushing. Suffocating.

Silently, I pray the prayer that I have whispered so many times, in a thready voice, the words falling from cracked lips and from the shattered anguish of a broken spirit. God, I need you. It's simple, yet it hurts me every time to admit that I cannot do anything in this life by myself. This phone call is proof of that.

"Not really," I say. "I know I'm gonna get there, though."

"You have got to be kidding me!" My father's voice rings out through the dining room as he marches in at breakfast time, his face the very picture of rage. He waves something around that I can't quite see clearly. A receipt? A shipping manifest? Whatever it is, he does not seem pleased to see it. "Which one of you tonto boys did this?"

"Excuse me?" Sebastian says. Rising from his seat with a bagel in his hand. He never could hold his tongue when provoked. And Sebastian is always provoked. Thankfully, Christina isn't here to see this. "What did Antonio do now?"

I roll my eyes at the juvenile jab but don't respond.

"The cargo was due to be flown in on the eleventh after a rescheduling. Instead, it arrives at the airport. And guess who is waiting? The feds. So tell me, which one of you ticked off those guys? Was it you, Sebastian?"

"You think I would break omerta?" he asks. The question is such a stain upon his twisted sense of integrity that he looks like he would go to blows to prove that it's intact. None of us would ever go so far as to break omerta. No matter what kind of situation we were in. "And here i thought you were my father. "Dio, I would never."

Our father laughs, looking like he's seconds away from spitting in Sebastian's face. "Your words mean nothing. It's your actions that prove who you are, And you were in my office the same day that I had a phone call about rescheduling these shipments."

My stomach sinks. How could this happen? Who could be causing it? Would Sebastian really sink so low as to betray our family?

One look at his face suggests to me that he might. "I would never betray our family."

"You'll have to make me believe it, boy." With that, Roberto Cavalli snatches up and takes a bite out of a perfect, polished apple on the table, leaving a crisp hole in its side. Then he leaves.

That went reasonably well.

"You did it, didn't you?" snaps Sebastian,. "You sent your girl in there to spy on our father, in here to spy on all of us--"

"Why would I do that, exactly?" I say coolly. "In what way would it benefit me?"

"I don't know, but when I find out, you're going to be wishing you'd confessed a long time ago," he says. Then he grabs his bagel and makes a second, less dramatic exit than our father's.

I continue eating my oatmeal in silence, staring out the window. A hush falls over the room, now absent of any conflict or shouting. Yet my soul is still downcast, disturbed within me. I need something. Peace escapes me, forever out of my reach. Happiness, I have long given up searching for, watching it slip from my fingers with every terrible tragedy or minor irritation. But peace, I thought I might try. What I need, I decide, is a purpose. A reason to live. A reason to exist.

Not just for this family. Not anymore. Not now that I've seen the cracks that run through it, like throwing a glass vase on the floor and thinking it's unbroken, not seeing the fractures that snake through it like the veins on my wrist.

I need something. But from where? What?