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“Whoa!” Scar grabs the lamp before it can hit the floor. “We don’t throw things when we’re mad.”

“I hate him!” Max folds his arms over his chest and plops down on his butt in the middle of the floor.

“He’s not a nice person,” Scar says.

“He’s mean, and he hurts me bad.”

“I know.”

“Is he going to come and take me away?” Max asks.

“No.”

“I know my mom’s dead. Dad killed her.” His voice is so flat it takes me a second to register what he said. How the hell does he know? Did one of the guys tell him? Did Scar tell him?

“Who told you that?” I ask.

“I saw it on TV.”

“When?”

“I was trying to find cartoons this morning. There was some guy from the FBI talking about my mom. There was a picture of us. He said she’s dead and they’re trying to find me. You can’t tell them I’m here!” Desperation enters his voice, and he looks at us as if his life depends on our response. In a way, it does, but we’re going to protect him with our lives. He needs to know that.

“We’re not giving you back to your dad. We’re going to keep you safe until we can find a new home for you. Would you like that?” Nina asks.

“Maybe.” He glances from her to me before pinning Scar with his wary gaze. “Will I have another dad?”

“You’ll have a mom and a dad, but your new dad won’t be mean to you,” Scar says. “We make sure our foster families have been through background checks before we even consider giving them one of the kids we rescue.”

“Would I get to meet them first?” Max asks.

“Of course. If you don’t like them, you’ll be able to tell someone who’s part of the local motorcycle club. He’ll be your big brother while you’re getting used to your new family,” Scar says.

“I’ve never had a big brother before.” Max’s eyes widen, and the tension in his face relaxes.

“It will be really fun,” Scar says. “He’ll take you out riding on his bike—”

“His motorcycle?” Max jumps to his feet, grinning.

“Yep. And he’ll take you to club meet-ups so you can make friends with the other kids,” Nina says.

“Cool!”

“You’ll have friends to play with and a new family to take care of you. How does that sound?” Scar asks casually, but I can see he’s anxious about Max’s response. He really cares for the boy, which makes me wonder why he hasn’t considered keeping him. He could live here with Nina and the rest of the club. Why send him away?

“What if the dad is mean?” Max asks.

“Then we’ll find you somewhere else to live. But I promise you, he’ll be the best dad ever.” Scar says it with such confidence I believe him. He’d never make a promise like that to a child unless he were one hundred percent sure the man would be a good father.

They go back to building their fort and playing while Nina and I finish the cupcake batter. The one thing bugging me about the conversation we just had with Max is that he didn’t react to his mother’s death other than to worry about being sent back to his father. His reaction didn’t seem normal. Shouldn’t he be grieving? I want to ask Nina about it because she has far more experience with cases like this than I do, and I get the opportunity when we go into the baking pantry together to get food coloring for the frosting.

“He didn’t seem upset about his mom,” I whisper.

“It could be shock or a delayed reaction. Some kids shut down and just go through the motions when we’re moving them to a new home. They can’t handle all the stress, so they turn off their emotions,” she says softly.

“That can’t be good.”

“It’s not. They inevitably break down, but we’re ready for it. Our foster families are trained to help kids process their emotions. We also have child psychologists on call in every city we operate. This is just one chapter of Underground Vengeance. It’s a network of clubs that help kids like Max.”