It’s not Rose and Peter’s fault, they’re just kids, doing the best they can.

It’s the adults that are behaving badly, the really scummy sort of adults. So what extremes will you go to, just to survive?

Rose Dubonte, 14, and her brother Peter, 12, are faced with this question. They quickly realize that there are no boundaries; survival comes first. When the alternative is dire, you will do anything, absolutely anything to survive. And they do.

It all starts when their mom, Mary, has to leave on an emergency; her mom, their Gran, has died and she has to travel from Austin to New York for a brief funeral, then on to France to scatter her ashes. She leaves a message for her boyfriend, Dougie Williams, a cop, to notify Molly Whittaker to come and mind her children.

But Mary had picked the wrong man to be her boyfriend. Just getting over the death of her husband, she was emotionally rocky, and cunning Dougie sensed it and moved in, telling her he loved her and how special she was. Dougie had done this to other vulnerable women, then leaving and claiming half the value of their homes in a settlement; he was really skilled at it.

But Rose and Peter knew it was all false and hated him. That was their mom he was lying to. None of them knew that Dougie had some real bad acquaintances, and especially one, a Mattie Ferguson, was there for a reason. He had a past history with the Dubonte’s; all with Mary’s father. He had come off second best, and now, with her father long past gone, he wants revenge. And it has to start with the kids; he knows their value, and he intends to get it.

What can go wrong?

He now has Dougie on the inside, living with the Dubonte kids and the mother is now away? By the time she comes back, it will be all over and he will have made thousands, just from the violent porn videos he intends to shoot. It was guaranteed cash in the bank! Then there would be the finale! He would not only get revenge, but make thousands more, just off the final videos!

Those kids were worth their weight in gold while alive, and ten times that as they slowly died. It was gold. Real pervert gold.

Then he would do what he was good at.

The Clean Up.

With the kids and their mother all dead, it was now about removing any who could rat him out; Dougie had to be the first to go. It had to happen. Nothing but nothing could upset his plans!

It was money in the bank! His bank.

Only one problem. Rose and Peter are not for sale.