To my parents,

      Jerry and Kay Rhoades

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      As before, thanks to my editor, Ben Sevier, for advice and suggestions that had me tearing my hair out during the revisions—but that made this a better book.

      Sanford E. Walke IV provided valuable information on handguns for a book of mine that never got published, so I used it here. Thanks, Sandy.

      For information on the first Gulf War, I am indebted to Anthony Swofford’s amazing war memoir, Jarhead, and Rick Atkinson’s Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War. Any factual mistakes regarding matters military are, of course, my own.

CHAPTER ONE

      The first blow split Stan’s lip and knocked him into a stack of recapped tires at the back of the repair bay. He caught a glimpse of the bright sunlight and the road outside before his stepfather’s bulk eclipsed the light like an evil moon. The second, third, and fourth blows were softer but more humiliating, delivered as they were by the hand holding the rolled-up magazine. “This how you pay me back?” his stepfather bellowed, shaking the magazine in Stan’s face. Curled up, all Stan could see was part of a bare breast and nipple and a flash of thigh. “All I done for you?” He began punctuating his diatribe with blows across Stan’s face from the rolled-up magazine, as if Stan were a puppy who had piddled on the rug. “I (WHACK) put a ROOF (WHACK) over your HEAD (WHACK), put FOOD (WHACK) on your PLATE (WHACK), and all…” He shook the magazine in Stan’s face. “So you can sit around my business reading PORN?” He threw the magazine aside and grabbed Stan by the collar of his T-shirt.

      “I didn’t—,” Stan blubbered. “It’s not—” He hated himself for the tears that sprang to his eyes. Stan was sixteen, almost seventeen, and he was almost as tall as his stepfather. But when the blows came, forehand, backhand, he was as helpless as a five-year-old before the older man’s fury. He didn’t even dare put his hands up to shield his face. Every time he had tried that, he had been beaten worse, once so badly he had lost a tooth. So he took the punishment, his guts twisting with fear and hate. He tried to make himself go far away, so it would all seem like it was happening to someone else. Sometimes he could make that happen. Those times were easier. It was easier if the loathing he felt was for some other weak, helpless pussy. This time, though, he couldn’t do it. It stayed real. It was Stan who felt the collar of the T-shirt rip in his stepfather’s hand, Stan who saw the rage double in the man’s eyes, Stan who saw the open hand pulled back, closed into a fist, and ready to put the lights out…

      There was a tinny double ping from out front that signaled a vehicle pulling up. Saved by the bell, Stan thought giddily as his stepfather released him and straightened up.

      “I’ll finish with you later,” the older man snarled. He turned on his heel and walked out of the repair bay. Stan slid down to the floor and hugged his knees, willing himself not to cry. He leaned over to pick the wadded magazine off the floor. On the cover, a slim blonde girl who looked hardly out of puberty was looking back over her naked shoulder with what was intended to be a sultry look. She really just looked pissed.