Losing Streak (The Lane) (8 page)

Like a Colossus
,
and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about

To find ourselves dishonorable graves.

Men at some time are masters of their fates.

The fault
,
dear Brutus
,
is not in our stars

But in ourselves
,
that we are underlings.

—William Shakespeare

Chapter Ten

Thirty-three months later

It was Tuesday, the middle of the work and school week, and yet it could have been a Friday night for how packed the Lane was. It was full to bursting, no room to breathe, let alone move. People were practically stepping over each other just to wait in the lines to be admitted to the Lane’s various bars.

Drinking would always be the religion of choice here and there’d never be a shortage of devoted worshippers.

I should have had to push my way through the crowd, as congested as it was, but it parted easily for me. It always did. They might not have recognized me, the people who hurried out of my way, but they could sense I was not just another one of them. I was somebody. Somebody worth clearing a path for. They were right. And they were smart to recognize it.

There were two things you didn’t do in this town. The first was never cross Joshua King. The second? Never, ever, cross his right hand.

I wasn’t the only one who was being avoided tonight. Up ahead, about halfway down the street, was an obvious hole in the sea of bodies. I quickened my pace, eyes trained on that spot, only to pull up short once I was close enough to make out the two hulking figures posted by the doors to Molly’s Pub. I squinted, but I already knew. There was no mistaking that tight, clenched jawline that contrasted so sharply with the casual way one of them held himself. I balled my suddenly tingling hands into fists. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not at Molly’s. Not on the Lane at all.

“Shit.”

It was little more than a whisper, a stunned breath that I could barely hear over the relentless pounding of my heart. No way they could have heard me, not with the distance still between us or the buzzing of the thick crowd we were standing in. Yet they both turned to look in my direction simultaneously with curious expressions. I quickly arranged my face in a careful mask and strode forward, focusing on the smaller of the two.

“Is it empty?”

Cameron Rice pulled down the ridiculous wraparound sunglasses he was wearing and gave me a nod. He didn’t elaborate beyond that douchey gesture. I spared Brandon a glance, the streetlights overhead washing his face in a warm glow, and my heart stuttered painfully. He hadn’t changed. Nothing about him had changed. Except, perhaps, the edge in his eyes that I didn’t remember being quite so hard and sharp.

“It’s night and you’re wearing sunglasses,” I said, focusing on Rice once more. “You look like an ass. And where the hell is Jared?”

Rice’s nearly handsome features twisted into a scowl as he jerked the glasses off his face. “Boss wanted him at Duke’s tonight. He sent us over instead.” He paused. “But you should’ve known that already. Since you know everything that goes on.”

“I know the important stuff. Which you are clearly not included in,” I snapped before taking a deep breath and shoving every ounce of emotion I was feeling down deep. Then I drew myself up to the impressive five-ten height that my heels put me at and squared my shoulders. “I get an hour with him. A full hour. I don’t want you or anyone else barging in before that. Are we clear?”

Rice nodded again quickly enough, but his dark brown gaze was hard and resentful, informing me just how he felt about being ordered around in general and by me in particular. I stared at him for a moment longer before I mirrored the movement. I didn’t trust him. I had absolutely no reason to trust him. Cameron Rice had proven in the past that he wasn’t afraid to fuck over anyone he felt got in his way. He was a yes-man, Joshua’s yes-man, to the power of ten, but I held rank here.

I fought a hard war to keep myself from looking over at Brandon once more, who I could feel watching the entire exchange rather stoically. I imagined the worry that would be bracketing his downturned lips and I wanted to do something, anything really, to ease it. There was nothing, though. Not now. Not here on the Lane, with Rice and God only knew who else watching.

Because what if I couldn’t look away again?

Instead, I moved past them without another word, chest aching with every step, and pulled open the fogged-up glass door to Molly’s. It took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim lighting, and they were drawn to the room’s only real source of illumination, a mounted TV in the back corner. The volume was turned too low to hear much of anything, but from what I could make out, it sounded as if the grim-faced reporter was criticizing the president on a recent speech. If it hadn’t been for Rice and Brandon outside, the choice in programming would be enough to drive most customers away. I shook my head, attempting to clear it and focus on the task at hand. Because depending on what happened tonight, it wouldn’t matter what channel they had their TV on. Their pub would stay this empty.

A flash of movement on my left caused me to jerk my head in that direction. A nervous, twitchy-looking woman stood behind the bar watching me with dark, wary eyes. I could tell by the look on her face she knew who I was, or at least knew of me, and she didn’t know whether to be angry or worried.

It was a familiar sight, those warring emotions. It wasn’t the first time I’d been met with them. The people I visited on Joshua’s orders were often both appalled and relieved to see my face. I was their angel of mercy as well as their harbinger. I wasn’t him, the king, and yet I came on his behalf. I was their last hope before he sent in his worst, and they both loved me for not being them and hated me knowing what could come after I left.

“Mrs. MacBain,” I said by way of greeting as I made my way over to her. The sound of her name on my lips had her fisting the spotted rag in her hand. “I’m Rosemary Young.”

“Aye. I know who ye are,” she replied in a quiet but firm voice, with just enough accent present to be noticeable.

“Then you know I’m here to speak with your husband.”

“Aye. We’ve been waiting for ye to show.”

They always were. Being acknowledged, being seen and anticipated, even in an infamous sort of way, filled me with a deep, almost shameful, satisfaction.

“Then you also know how important it is that I speak with him tonight. I’m on a time frame and it’s limited.”

Slowly, deliberately, she set down the rag and leaned toward me, so close I could catch a faint whiff of baby powder on her. It reminded me of Mama. I didn’t pull back, as much as I wanted to.

“My Charlie is a good man. What yer doing to him is wrong,” she said in a tone that managed to be both hard and soft, lyrical and jagged. I arched a brow. Not what I was expecting from this trembling creature. This was a woman with steel in her spine.

“I’m not doing anything to him, ma’am. Except trying to save his endangered skin.”

She studied me, eyes roaming over my face as if she was trying to memorize it. I gazed evenly back at her, waiting. The clock was ticking and she was wasting the precious minutes it was counting off.

“Ye tell yerself that to help ye sleep at night. But, I wonder, does it work?”

“I sleep fine,” I said. “I don’t believe in anything that jeopardizes that. But I’ll tell you I don’t sleep nearly as soundly as your husband will if we don’t get this resolved in a timely manner.”

“And now it’s threats, is it? Ye have no shame.”

I was losing my patience. I didn’t have a lot of it to start with.

“Listen, I get it. I do. And there’s nothing you can say to me, no insult you can throw at me, that’s going to be worse than what I’ve heard before. So save your breath.”

“Yer the devil.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just the girl who works for him.”

“Girl,” she scoffed. “No. You’re no more a girl than a wolf dressed in wool is a lamb.”

“Okay. I’ll give it to you. That one was new.” I leaned across the bar myself, this time crowding into her space. I had to hand it to her. She didn’t so much as flinch. “My time is valuable, Mrs. MacBain, and you’re wasting it. So do us both a favor and go inform your husband that the bad wolf is here to see him.”

Her eyes, a lovely shade of green, narrowed slightly. “I’ll tell him. But first I’ll tell ye this. Ye mighta convinced the others, paid ’em or scared ’em or whatever it is that ye did, but ye’ll not be getting the same from us. Ye might as well know that now.”

“And you might as well know this. No matter what kind of man you believe your husband to be, Joshua King always gets his way. It’s only a matter of how.”

I expected some kind of reaction, a scowl, a shake of the head, something other than the blank stare I was met with. This woman didn’t just possess a spine of steel, apparently her balls were made of the same stuff. I kinda respected her for it. Not many people were brave enough to stand up to Joshua King, whether directly or indirectly. I almost hated that she and her husband would end up as just another of his lackeys and all that testicular fortitude would be for nothing.

Almost. Not quite enough to openly root for them. I had too much to gain with their submission and I still had people counting on me.

“Anytime tonight would be appreciated, Mrs. MacBain.”

Without another word, she turned on her heel and walked through the swinging door to the back.

I let a sigh escape once I was sure I was alone, and rubbed at my forehead roughly, telling myself there was no way I was going to look toward the large window next to the front door. I’d barely finished the thought before I was glancing that way. Through the steamed glass I could just make out the shape of Rice and Brandon. The latter was angled in a way to watch me. Not obviously. Not so much that anyone watching him would know, but I did.

I wanted to kick something. But it wasn’t the time, nor was it the place. Not to mention, my shoes were far too expensive to willfully abuse in such a way.

I clenched my eyes shut and turned away with a low growl. I’d told Rice I knew the important shit and I did. Except this. I hadn’t known this. I hadn’t known that Brandon had come home, like the prodigal son, once more.

It took a few minutes, minutes I spent growing less agitated by the presence of the boy outside and more aggravated with the man somewhere in the building. That emotion could be harnessed and used productively. And it was safer.

Finally Mrs. MacBain reappeared, her expression stony.

“He’ll be out in a minute. He said for ye to find a seat.”

I nodded and thanked her, because while I was irked, Mama had raised me to be polite, and that meant not flat-out ignoring anyone. Though I’m sure when Mama taught me those manners she never envisioned me putting them to use in situations quite like this. I settled into a booth tucked into the corner to continue my wait, taking care to sit with my back to the window. But I could still feel Brandon’s presence, only a thin sheet of glass and the stretch of chipped wood flooring between us.

I tapped my nails against the tabletop, trying to focus on the dull clicking rather than the thoughts swirling in my head. It didn’t work. Of course it didn’t. How could it when I felt him? When he was close, so bloody close, and yet it felt as if all of time and space still separated us.

He’d been gone for two years. Two fucking years of silence, of knowing he was out there somewhere, living and breathing, but not near me. And that had been bad. That had been unbearable. But it’d been nothing compared to getting the news he was
back.
Suddenly I was thrust into a reality of having to function knowing he was somewhere nearby. That we walked the same streets, haunted the same places, existed, but not together.

I knew all too well, because it had happened before, when he came back from his first job in Canada. I’d watched for him, constantly, out of the corner of my eye, both dreading and praying for the day he’d be there. I longed to see him, yet was terrified of the pain it would cause.

And then I did. Just once. And I died a thousand deaths.

He’d been in the Tap Room with Luke Turner and the rest of Luke Turner’s team. The same Luke Turner who lost that fight so long ago and who Brandon was now forced to patch up after every fight as his cut man. Bri Martin and Jackson had been with them, the latter’s presence filling me with a sick kind of anxiety, seeing him so close to the very world I was trying to shield him from. I’d spent much of the night avoiding looking in that direction, convinced I was openly bleeding, only there was no blood to be found. Then I was shoved there in front of him by a pushy Bri and a cruel Joshua.

It hurt. God. It burned and it tore at everything. Every piece of me throbbed and wailed at the nearness I’d been denied for so long.

Two months later, Joshua had casually mentioned he was gone again. Back up north. It was both easier and harder to breathe once more. I could focus. I could shove through. A piece of me had been ripped away, leaving a gaping, bloody hole, but it wasn’t out there somewhere in the same night as me.

Except now he was back. We had just over two months to go and I’d been charged with bringing in the biggest contract to date and here he was, like a poison and a cure.

It was only by sheer force of will that I didn’t drop my head in my hands and let out the frustrated scream welling in me. Fucking Joshua. Fucking ruthless, coldhearted bastard. Fucking Charles MacBain taking his sweet-ass time, leaving me to stew in shit I couldn’t afford to stew in.

Luckily, the latter chose that moment to make his appearance.

I wasn’t sure what I’d been expecting but Charles MacBain wasn’t it. He was a massive man who wore a matching-sized scowl on his ruddy face, his ham-sized fists clenched at his sides as he marched toward me. Over his shoulder, I spotted Mrs. MacBain back behind the bar, watching her husband with a look of hope and adoration.

I turned my attention back to the man now towering over me, feeling a grin tug at my lips. This was better. This I could handle.

“Mr. MacBain.”

“Let’s get something straight right now, lass. Ye can say what ye will about Charlie MacBain but never accuse him of being a coward.”

“No?” I laughed, hoping it didn’t sound quite as forced as it was. It must not have, considering how it earned me what was probably the blackest look in his arsenal. “Is hiding behind your wife not cowardly where you’re from, Mr. MacBain? Because where I’m from, it definitely is.”