Chapter 1

• Jenny’s POV
• I wake up to the sound of my father screaming in rage, followed by something smashing on the floor. It has become a daily routine in this house. Another day, another unanswered prayer for his demise.
• I get up and head to the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. I don't recognize the person looking back at me.
• Living in this deadbeat town called Snow has drained me.
• Snow, a small Alaskan town known for its illegal smuggling activities across the US-Canada border, is a place I despise.
• Yukon, Canada was about a half hour drive from here, through the mountain road.
• This specific feature made it the perfect place for smuggling anything from and across the border.
• The town's name honors the Snow family, who started the smuggling business here. They control everything—schools, hospitals, supermarkets, and even the police. The Snow clan makes up half the town's population and has strict rules: no addictive drugs or human trafficking.
• My family, the Walkers, is also deeply embedded in this town. My father and uncle have worked with the Snows for decades, despite having a legal trading business.
• Greed keeps them involved in illegal activities, and recent disagreements with the Snows have made my father even more intolerable. He takes his anger out on us, mainly my mom, but I intervene to share her suffering.
• My mom is too scared to leave him, and we have no one to turn to. My aunt Jenna, who escaped to Canada, knows about the abuse but not its extent.
• I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 15 after one of my father's beatings left me unconscious. Managing diabetes is a constant struggle, requiring insulin shots and strict monitoring. My smart watch helps track my blood sugar, but stress from living here complicates my condition.
• After checking my blood sugar and taking my insulin, I hear my father leave. I walk into the kitchen to find my mom cleaning up his mess. On the table is a torn wedding invitation for Alex Snow, Isaac Snow's oldest son.
• Isaac Snow, the leader of the Snow clan, has four children. Three sons and one daughter. The oldest one was Alex, followed by Jacob, Lucas, and April.
• I have never met any of them before. I’ve only seen glimpses of the daughter April at my high school. She was seventeen years old, a year younger than me. The boys were all older, that’s why I never ran into them despite living in a small town where everyone knows each other.
• I look up at her in confusion and ask “So he got mad over a wedding invitation? I don’t get it”
• She sighs and says “The wedding is today, I took out the invitation to double check the time of the ceremony so we could get ready beforehand. When he came into the kitchen and saw me reading it, he just flipped out on me. Said we were not allowed to attend this wedding. I tried to ask him why and he started shouting at me in rage and smashed the plate on the floor” she said sadly.
• I raised my eyebrows “Well, apparently the arguments they’ve been having are bigger than we thought”
• I sat down on the chair and started eating breakfast silently as I kept staring at the invitation, while mom was cleaning the dishes at the sink.
• Alex Snow was marrying an outsider. The town was buzzing with this news for the past month, ever since they sent out those invitations.
• It was unheard of, because they never allowed outsiders in. Well, seeing as it is Alex Snow; the next in line to take the leadership after his father, he apparently got to do whatever the hell he wanted.
• My father forbade us from attending the wedding, further fueling his rage.
• Alex is marrying an outsider, Melanie Sullivan, a rare occurrence in this insular town. I pity her for marrying into a family of criminals, oblivious to the danger she is walking into.
• The Snows are currently facing threats from a powerful new player trying to smuggle drugs through the town.
• The last time I eavesdropped on their meeting, they were discussing their problem with convincing Isaac Snow to let drugs in before someone else wipes them all out and takes over.
• There was a powerful new player trying to enter the business. A drug lord I assume. He managed to convince my father and uncle to allow him a passage through the town to smuggle his drugs into the US.
• Isaac Snow's refusal to cooperate has put them in danger. My father's discussions with my uncle and cousin reveal a looming threat. A drug lord is determined to take over, and the Snows are his primary target. This spells disaster for anyone associated with them, including Melanie.
• I finish breakfast in silence, contemplating the grim reality of our lives.
• My father's anger, the town's corruption, and the impending danger from the drug lord create a suffocating environment.
• Melanie's marriage to Alex Snow is a ticking time bomb, and I can't help but feel sorry for her inevitable realization of the nightmare she's entering.
• In Snow, no one is safe, and our lives are dictated by the whims of powerful men. My only solace is the hope that one day, something will change, but for now, we remain trapped in this cycle of violence and fear.
• But what I did know was that the Snows were currently staring down the barrel of a gun.
• And that poor girl who was about marry Alex Snow, will regret ever laying eyes on him, I was certain.
• She either had no clue that she was killing herself by marrying into his family, or too stupid to realize it now.
• But she will definitely figure it out someday, and it will be too damn late for her.