Things changed when I was twelve. My mother was killed in broad daylight, and my father seemed to switch gears. His business was even more secretive, and his support of me being involved in anything else became more passionate. He put together a college fund for me that was so flush, I could have gone to school for twenty years at any Ivy League school and still had money left over.
I graduated college with the intention of helping inner-city kids in New York. I had barely begun my work when I got the worst news I could imagine. My best friend, Sammi, who had grown up in the life as I had—except, she had leaned into it—had to tell me my father had died. Gunned down in his driveway at two in the afternoon. The entire house was sprayed with bullets as a message.
I wasn’t safe anymore.
The Capiano family was most likely responsible, but it could have been the Russians too. No one knew. For one reason or another, everyone technically had it out for Dad, but his talent for making everyone only a little bit angry with him and compromising with people to make deals had made him popular—if envied. The fear that they would come after me, just to make a point, was extreme.
That night, I packed everything I could into my car and drove over to Sammi’s. She kept me sane for a few days while I grieved, and then I started looking for a place to go. It was hard moving away from the city and everything that I had ever known, but it was the only way I could ensure I would be okay. After a tearful couple of days, I left Sammi and traveled south with a new cell phone that only she knew the number to. I felt like of all places, I could disappear in the mountains of Appalachia or somewhere nearby. Somewhere that new people would be news, and after I got into town, I would know if someone was asking after me.
I drove down I-95 until I got into Pennsylvania and then switched to I-81. The drive was gorgeous. And as I made it into Tennessee, I found myself drawn toward the mountains. Eventually, I left the interstate and drove back road after back road until I found a sleepy little town called Ashford. It was like a completely different world, so far removed from everything and everyone I ever knew. It was perfect.
When I made a stop to eat at a pizzeria called Sergio’s, I browsed the local newspaper. Glancing through the tiny, classified ads, my eyes passed over a few things until I saw rentals in the area. One spot looked particularly perfect, so I called the number that was listed while I was in the middle of a shockingly good slice. Three hours later, I pulled out a lock safe that I kept under my driver’s seat and took out enough cash to pay for the security deposit and six months’ rent. The look on the landlord when I handed him that much cash at once was hilarious, and I passed off the reason for it as an inheritance. It wasn’t entirely a lie, since it was money my father had set aside for me before he died.
The landlord walked away with the signed lease, and I propped open the door so I could bring everything from the car inside. And just like that, I was officially a resident of Ashford, Tennessee.
I spent two days setting up the house and exploring the town. The first night I slept in a sleeping bag in the middle of the living room. Since I kept the lights in the kitchen and bathroom on, I had a hard time getting any sleep at all. The reasons behind my sleeplessness had to be a combination of the place not having any furniture and the fact that my only forms of entertainment to pass the time were my phone and tablet. So, the first thing I did the next morning was go looking for furniture.
The town was essentially one street with a few shops. A couple of side streets split off it, which lead to the tiny police station, courthouse, firehouse, or the one department store in the area. An Amish furniture store was near the north end of the town, and I found myself browsing through their wares in the midafternoon, making an order for a delivery that evening.
With the bedroom suite, living room furniture, and some odds and ends from there, all that was left was filling out the house with all the modest things a person needed to live. The department store had most of it, but I bounced around, sticking my head into every shop on the main street until I was only an hour out of the furniture delivery.