Chapter 1 - GET OUT OF MY HOUSE
The first thing Daryl Mercer heard when he stepped into the Malibu beach house was wood breaking.
Not glass.
Not a chair.
Wood.
A sharp, splintering crack that made ten-year-old Eli scream.
Daryl dropped the cardboard box in his hands and ran toward the living room.
The house was full of sunlight and salt air. The ocean beyond the windows flashed blue beneath the afternoon sky. Wine glasses stood on the kitchen island. Orange soda sweated in plastic cups on the hardwood floor.
And in the middle of the room, one of Jenna’s eight-year-old twins had both feet planted on Eli’s wooden sailboat.
The mast was snapped clean in half.
The second twin kicked a broken piece toward the sofa and laughed.
Eli dropped to his knees.
“STOP! THAT’S MINE!”
His hands shook as he gathered the splintered pieces.
Zoe, only six, stood behind him clutching the hem of his shirt.
Daryl stopped.
For one second he could not move.
The sailboat was not expensive.
That was what people like Jenna would say.
It was hand-cut pine, badly varnished in places, with a tiny white sail and Eli’s initials burned into the side.
His mother had built it with him.
Anna.
Three summers before cancer took her.
Eli had refused to bring almost anything from their old house after she died.
But the sailboat came everywhere.
Malibu most of all.
Because Anna had taught him how to float it in the shallow tidal pool below the cliff.
One twin deliberately tipped his orange soda.
The drink spilled across Eli’s beach towel, comic books, shells, and the cardboard box of things he had brought for the week.
Eli gasped and grabbed at the wet belongings.
Jenna Mercer stood beside the sofa.
Blonde.
Tanned.
Perfect.
Laughing.
“Relax. It’s just a stupid toy.”
Daryl turned slowly toward his sister.
“What?”
Jenna folded her arms.
“Don’t make this into a whole thing.”
Eli looked up with tears pouring down his face.
The broken sailboat was pressed against his chest.
Daryl’s heart began pounding.
Jenna continued, almost bored:
“Besides, your kids can’t stay here.”
Daryl stared at her.
“What did you just say?”
“My boys already took the guest room.”
Daryl’s eyes moved toward the hallway.
There were five bedrooms in the house.
His parents usually used the ocean suite.
Jenna took the downstairs bedroom.
Her twins were supposed to share the bunk room.
Daryl and the children used the west rooms upstairs.
Always.
Jenna shrugged.
“We rearranged.”
Eli looked at his father.
“Dad… do we have to leave?”
The words were quiet.
That made them worse.
Daryl looked toward the fireplace.
His father, Robert Mercer, sat in a linen shirt with a glass of red wine raised near his mouth.
Robert laughed.
“Come on, Daryl. They’re kids.”
Daryl’s mother, Elaine, lifted her own glass.
“Don’t ruin the weekend.”
Daryl turned back to Eli.
His son was still kneeling on the hardwood.
Still clutching the wreckage of the sailboat Anna had helped him build.
Still looking at his father as if asking whether humiliation was simply the price of belonging to this family.
Something inside Daryl changed.
Not exploded.
Changed.
He crossed the room.
One twin tried to grab another piece from Eli’s hands.
Daryl caught the boy by the shoulders and moved him away.
“Enough.”
The twin shouted.
“MOM!”
The other boy rushed toward him.
Daryl moved him too.
Not violently.
Firmly.
Directly toward the front hallway.
Jenna’s smile vanished.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting them away from my son.”
“DON’T TOUCH MY KIDS!”
She charged toward him.
Daryl turned and blocked her path.
“Back up.”
Jenna shoved against his chest.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!”
Behind them, Robert finally stood.
“Daryl.”
Daryl ignored him.
Jenna pointed toward Eli.
“He’s crying over a toy!”
Daryl’s face went red.
“It wasn’t a toy.”
“Oh, please.”
“Anna made it with him.”
That stopped the room for half a second.
Even Jenna knew better.
Then she recovered.
“Well, my boys didn’t know.”
“They knew he said stop.”
She rolled her eyes.
“My kids are not leaving.”
Daryl pointed toward the open front door.
His voice came from somewhere lower than anger.
“THEN TAKE THEM AND GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”
Silence.
The twins stopped yelling.
Robert stared.
Elaine lowered her wineglass.
Jenna’s face changed from fury to disbelief.
“Your house?”
Daryl looked directly at her.
“Yes.”
May you like
And for the first time in years, every Mercer in the room looked frightened by the same two words:
My house.
