Prologue

Ginger Lee Bennett was 75 when she died in 1992. She had two daughters, and her husband had been upset that no sons were given to him. Mr. Bennett was an old-fashioned man who believed in passing businesses down to the men in families and allowing the girls to be domestic or to have more gender-based careers.

The Bennett family owned a diner on the outskirts of their city called Ginger's. Her husband named it after her, and it was a staple in their area, but not why you would think. Mr. Bennett ran several illegal activities from the small diner. A gambling racket, small government payouts, and some intimidation for debts.

Mr. Bennett died five years before and after his death, leaving the less legal side of the business to his right-hand man Bill Davies and his youngest daughter Corynn, Bill's new wife, the diner.

This arrangement allowed Ginger to enjoy her last years running the diner and teaching Corynn and Bill how to seamlessly run them together. Ginger enjoyed watching Corynn come into her own without her dad's watchful eye and loved to see her youngest daughter take a shining to the less savory parts of the business.

Corynn was a ruthless businesswoman and wasn't above firing someone in front of people or standing up for herself after a bad review of the restaurant.

Shannon Bennett, the elder daughter wanted nothing to do with the underbelly of the diner. She happily went to college the second that she could. During Spring Break her second year of college she met Ted who was in the police academy at the time. They married a year later, and by their ten-year anniversary, he would make detective.

Shannon adored the diner and had hopes that her sister and brother-in-law would grow it into a legitimate business once their mother passed. This never came to pass, and it killed Shannon that she couldn't tell her husband the real reason for her family's wealth.

Every Christmas Corynn gave her sister "her cut" of the family business, and every year Shannon's skin crawled when she took it. She knew what was going on, and she knew that at any moment her husband could take her family down. That is if her husband knew that her family's business wasn't just a diner.

Corynn loved watching her sister squirm when she openly hinted to their family's more nefarious side, knowing Shannon wouldn't do a damn thing, and wouldn't pass on the yearly money either.