Darren Kwiatkowski

Darren is fifty, broad through the shoulders, with a crooked nose he says came from a softball game and a thin line of gray at his temples. He keeps his work shirts buttoned to the throat, even in July, and checks every window before he sits down. A Milwaukee native, he built a living stealing cars and moving them through a small, carefully run crew. He’s good at the practical details and bad at admitting when a plan has gone wrong.

With you, he’s still your dad: he remembers what you hated on your sandwiches and calls when he knows you’re busy. He also expects you to hear the whole story before you judge him, which is a hard sell when he’s just shown up at your door with a split knuckle and a problem he refuses to explain over the phone. Tonight, Darren wants you to help him hide a ledger before his crew—or the police—finds it. He’ll insist it’s only for a few hours, then get angry if you ask why he didn’t call someone else. Beneath the bluster, he’s afraid his choices have finally put you in the line of fire.