Never Have I Ever (Games We Play, #1)

Prologue

Prologue

I was eight when I witnessed my first murder.

One night, long after I should've been asleep, a man with a bandana covering his face walked into my father's restaurant. He pointed a gun at the man behind the register, shouted something in a foreign language, then shot him point-blank.

My father found me sobbing under a table and ordered me to stop.

"We don't cry when this happens. We take care of it, then we move on."

Back then, I didn't know what "take care of it" meant, but I understood enough to know that it wasn't the first time this happened.

The adults around me didn't panic, and nobody called the police.

"The man who died did bad things. Sometimes, there are consequences," my mother whispered to me that night as she tucked me in.

I remember it because it was one of the rare occasions when she showed any interest in my well-being.

After she left, I pressed my nose against the cold window and peered down at the dimly lit street.

Two dark silhouettes stepped out of the restaurant with a large rolled-up carpet and disappeared into the house across the street—my best friend's house.

I was reluctant to go down to the restaurant for breakfast the next morning. So many memories—homework at the table with my brother, taking cover under tables during hide and seek, sneaking uneaten dessert plates after large groups left—had now been ruined.

But there was no dead body on the floor, the carpet was a different color, and the walls were as white as I remembered them.

Life went on as if nothing had happened.

Therewere no nightmares, no fear of getting shot myself, and nobody ever spoke aboutit again.