Salem works part time as a server at a nearby diner. He's not a huge fan of the job, just because customer service is not his forte. He'd be much better in basically any other profession, but he does decent in tips and he likes the owner, so he's stuck around.

He gets off late, though. They close at eleven, twelve on the weekends. It's Thursday, so they closed at eleven. This resulted in him nearly getting home at 12 am. He was expecting nobody to be awake—his father has to be at work at 6 am, so he typically doesn't stay up too late. They are the only two that live in the house, anyway.

This is why Salem is beyond confused when he walks through the front door and finds his father seated at the dinner table, files and papers strewn all over the place. Salem furrows his brows, and walks further into the kitchen. "Dad? Is everything okay?"

Jack jumps a bit, and he has light circles underneath this eyes. His hair is a bit messy, and he has a large cup of coffee next to him.

"Yes, how was work?"

Salem raises a brow at him, concern growing the more he surveys the scene. The entire dinner table is completely covered in papers and photos and such, Salem doesn't know how his father can find anything in it. He slowly makes his way towards the table and stands next to the man.

"Good. What are you doing?" Salem questions. Jack finally looks up to meet his eyes.

This isn't the first time Salem has seen his father all buried in work and stressed, but it is the first time in many years. Jack did this sort of thing when he was doing detective work. Lately he's just been handling finances and such. Once he's Chief he will hardly touch any cases, aside from the really serious ones.

"Just another Di Angelo case."

"What was it this time?" Salem asks, taking a seat by his father at the table. He peeks over to see what the man is doing. He appears to just be writing on a paper, though Salem can't make out the words.

"There have been several known associates of them, turning up dead. They were all informants. I'm trying to figure out what keeps blowing their covers."

Salem frowns. Informants? Turning up dead? Salem leans forward to survey the pictures more closely. He's only able to see a few gory images—these informants appear to have been almost tortured—before his father is covering them up. Still, Salem feels his mood brought down a lot. He knows that these people were criminals, but they were still people. They were helping the police. Even if they weren't, though, that's a horrible way to go.

Salem can't wait until that family's eventual incarceration. Unfortunately, that probably won't be any time soon.

It's damn near impossible to get proof on them. They are very good at covering their tracks, partially because they send other people to do the really dirty work. Jack Heart has been trying to get them locked away—for good—for nearly six years now. Typically the most he can get away with, for any family member, is a few months.

There are some that he's never been able to catch, though. The parents, for one.

See, there's a father, a mother, and together they have five kids. There are also grandparents, but they don't really partake in all the mob stuff. Salem knows that two of the kids are middle school age, twins, and he thinks the rest are around their twenties.

Nobody knows anything about the father. At least, not the police. He's known by several street aliases, but nobody knows his actual name. Salem has heard him called all kinds of things, but most just call him The King or The Boss or something along those lines.

The mother is basically the same situation. Salem's father hasn't told him much more detail than that, though. Salem has never understood why Jack is so secretive about it now—he used to rant to Salem all about his cases. For his own health, Salem has made the decision to not take it personally.

Salem does know that the family branches out beyond that—aunts, uncles, cousins, that sort of thing. They don't usually cause the problems, though. They aren't the ones in charge.

"You really don't have enough proof to arrest them yet? Or at least to get some sort of warrant?"

Salem's father shakes his head but doesn't verbally respond. The man has been on this family's case for so long, there's no way he's made no progress, though. Right?

Salem knows that they are difficult to catch, as previously mentioned, but at this point... there's no way nothing has come of all the hard work.

"No way. How?"

Jack is writing something down on a paper. He appears to be quite focused. For a moment Salem thinks that he didn't hear him. However, a couple minutes go by before Jack—without looking up or pausing in his work—answers.

"They've been in the game for a really long time, Salem." Jack replies, and Salem can tell from his voice how exhausted he is. He feels kind of bad for asking questions and interrupting his work. "I've done what I could without risking your safety."

Wait, what? Salem's safety? How would investigating the Di Angelo's risk Salem's safety? Unless... wait, is he saying that they would go after Salem if Jack got too close? Is Jack implying that if he didn't have Salem to worry about, to protect, he could've caught them by now?

"What do you mean?"

Jack sighs, and Salem gets the feeling he is growing impatient. He finally looks up from his work to make eye contact with Salem. Something about the look in Jack's eye has Salem taking pause. "I've seen what they do. You haven't. I've done what I could without risking your safety."

Jack goes back to his work, then, and Salem has the urge to exit the room. As an afterthought, Jack continues. "It's getting out of hand, though."

Salem nods, the atmosphere of the room changing a bit. The way that Jack is acting—stressed and nervous—is putting him off. "So what're you gonna do about it?"

When Jack is Chief, in a bit less than a month, there's no way he will have time for things like this. Still, it's been a pretty large portion of his life for a long time now. There's no way he's going to just throw it all away, or step out of the investigation completely.

"I'm doing as much as I can right now," he replies. "Eventually I will be leaving Catrine in charge of the case."

Salem hums, and he just watches his father work for awhile. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Salem isn't sure why he asked that, since the answer should be obvious. He is expecting an immediate no. What could he possibly do to help the case? He isn't even a cop. However, he's surprised when his father... hesitates.

"No." He says way too late, and Salem frowns at him. He's getting a strange sense that there actually is something he could do to help.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." Jack sounds slightly defensive now. "Just let me know if you hear anything useful."

Salem simply nods, but he doesn't really know when he'd have an opportunity to hear something 'useful' about this. It's not like random kids at school or customers or anyone talk about a deep rooted crime family. Sure, the Di Angelo's are quite notorious, but people don't talk about them unless they want problems. Even mentioning the name is somewhat taboo.

Salem's night consists primarily of Zona calling him to talk about random things and Cam messaging him about some stunt he has planned. It still doesn't take him long to fall asleep.

The next day, Salem is slightly bummed out. He's not sure why, maybe he's just tired, but he's really not in the mood for anything.

It's when he's at lunch, sitting with Cam, Zona, and Milo, that he finds himself a part of a conversation that he shouldn't be all that surprised by. Cam's constant pestering throughout the week should've been a warning.

"Your truck would be perfect, though." Cam attempts to persuade. "Milo has the ramps built and everything."

"You're not using my truck to jump over anything." Zona replies, tone resolute.

"Come on," Cam whines. Zona's annoyed.

She is also unimpressed, and Salem doesn't really give a shit how this ends. If she gives in, then he will help out, if she doesn't, he will continue living his life normally. The only person that cares about this stuff is Cam. Well, and Milo, to an extent. Cam pays him to build all the contraptions they need, since on top of working at a hardware store, Milo's family also owns a construction business.

Anyway, Cam found an old car in a junkyard and has decided that people would enjoy a video of him jumping over it in a truck. So, he's been asking everyone he knows with a truck if he can use it. Obviously most have answered no, due to the potential damage done to their vehicles. Zona honestly is his best bet, though, so he's been pestering her for awhile.

"Why do you even want to do this so bad?" Zona asks, raising an eyebrow. Cam's eyes widen in excitement, because she's clearly starting to give in.

"Because it's gonna be sick." Milo pipes in. Cam points at him for emphasis. Zona seems stressed.

"Salem, talk them out of it." Zona orders, and Salem glances up from his YouTube video and chips. He'd hardly been paying attention to the conversation, too busy watching a random compilation.

"I tried," Salem replies, and Zona just huffs. Salem doesn't appreciate her acting like there's anything he could possibly do about this. Obviously he doesn't want Cam to do it either, especially since Salem agreed to film, which... yikes.

The filming angle is basically half the reason Cam wants to do this at all. Salem is going to be on a little platform beside the car, and he's going to be filming the truck from underneath the jump. This is obviously a horrible idea, so many things could go wrong, but he already agreed to it for a reason he can't remember. So oh well.

"If you can promise me that none of you will end up in the hospital, then fine."

"Promise," Cam and Milo say at the exact same time, which for some reason has Salem doubting their sincerity. Either way, Zona rolls her eyes and hands him her key. Salem assumes he will have to drive her home now.

Wait, shit, they're doing it tonight?

"We're doing it tonight?" Salem asks Cam, and the guy looks at him like he somehow should've already known that.

"Yeah? Come on, we've been planning this all week." He replies, and Salem tries to mentally prepare himself for tonight's bullshit. He doesn't remember Cam telling him an actual date for this, but Salem also isn't that great at paying attention. At least, to things he doesn't care about.

"If anything happens to my truck, you're paying for it." Zona warns, but Cam is hardly paying attention to anything she says anymore. Salem just goes back to watching his video, and by the end of lunch Cam has everything planned out to the last, minute detail.

Salem and Cam have been friends for a long time, but once the guy got into all his social media stunts and grew an obsession with filming everything, Salem stopped feeling so close with him. Cam just doesn't really have any sort of concern for people's privacy anymore, and he's gotten a bit more self centered. Don't get Salem wrong, Cam's still one of his best friends, but... well, a few years ago, this would not be their way of entertaining themselves on a Friday night.

Salem is getting the feeling that this is a bad idea. At the same time, though, a part of himself really enjoys the thrill of Cam's stunts. He's not sure why, but he thinks it may be because they add a bit of spice to his somewhat dull and routine life. Also, when they can pull off these things, Salem feels like he's in top of the world.

This one is a bit more dangerous than what they typically go for, though. Cam did mention that his views were going down, so maybe he's getting desperate. No matter what, there isn't a doubt in Salem's mind that tonight will be... exciting.