Authors: Lauren Gilley
He continued: “Ava said it looked like one of those old heavy bricks. I’m guessing whoever it was snitched it off the pile where they’re doing the restoration at the courthouse.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.” Mercy flashed a humorless smile. “Jesus.”
Michael curled his fingers around the iron rail, tightening and releasing them in a pattern that matched the angry beating of his heart. A sweeping sense of guilt and failure washed over him. Abraham and Jacob should be in the ground already, nothing but a few small bones left to grind beneath the hogs’ hooves. He had failed Holly, in his slowness. It was inexcusable.
“The girls are alright?” he asked, not recognizing his own voice for its thickness.
“This time they are.”
He let out a long, unsteady breath.
“Michael.” Mercy’s voice became cold, serious. When Michael met his gaze, the dark eyes were a perfect match to it. “Holly’s not welcome here anymore.”
He had expected as much, but still it sounded cruel.
“She’s a sweet girl,” Mercy said, “and it’s not often Ava takes a liking to new people, but I will not allow anyone, even defenseless little waitresses, to endanger my wife and child.”
Michael had never been present when the man was this determined, this ferocious, this insistent. It was a portrait of intimidation that far outshone the Cajun goodtime boy he presented under normal circumstances.
“I don’t know if you understand that, do you?” Mercy asked. “That brick came through
my
window, into
my
house, into the room
my
girl was standing in. That can never, ever happen again. I will not allow Ava to be put at any risk. Not for the sake of a brother, or the club – not for anything.” Face flushing dark with fury, he said, “I won’t watch her lose another baby.”
“I don’t expect you to. I understand.”
Mercy’s eyes narrowed. He flicked the cigarette away into the damp gutter. “Do you though?”
“
Yes
.”
The big man stood, turning to go up the steps. “I’ll send Holly down.”
“Mercy.”
He paused, glanced back over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry about what happened. I never meant for Ava to get hurt.”
No response. Mercy went up the steps and disappeared inside.
Holly came out a moment later, and her face crumpled when she saw him standing at the foot of the stairs. She came down to him in an unsteady rush, and his arms were open for her when she launched against him, twining her arms around his neck, pressing her face into his shoulder.
He hugged her hard, and whispered into her hair, “I’ll make it right. I promise I will.”
**
It was a long time before she stopped shaking. Even hours later, as she carried trays to tables, she saw the occasional tremor in her fingers. She had three near-accidents with full drinks, nearly sending them into customers’ laps.
“Sit down for a second,” Michael ordered gruffly as she passed his table. “You look like you’re gonna fall down.”
“I’m fine.” But she eased down on the edge of the seat opposite him and let her tray rest against her knee. “The anxiety takes a long time to go away,” she explained.
He frowned at her. He’d had no interest in his dinner, and at this point had shoved the plate to the side. His glass was empty, and she pushed to her feet to get him another.
“Just sit, damn it.”
“I can’t. We have a full house tonight. I’ve gotta check on three tables, and you need a refill anyway.”
“Coffee, not whiskey this time,” he said.
She froze, hand resting on the table. “Why?”
“Because I’m going hunting and I want to be good and awake.”
Not hunting for wild boar, she knew. “Michael, you shouldn’t–”
“Do what I said I’d do? No. I shouldn’t. I shoulda already done it.”
She started to argue with him, and decided she’d get nowhere, judging by the harsh set of his jaw. “Coffee, coming right up,” she muttered, and headed off to the kitchen.
She made her rounds, and then went back to Michael’s booth. He made an unmistakable gesture for her to sit, which she resisted.
“Have some of this.” He tried to give the mug back to her after she set it down.
“I can’t be seen drinking a customer’s coffee.”
At another time, she would have laughed herself breathless looking at the dark scowl that marred his face. “I’m not a customer.”
“Then what are you?”
“You know damn well.”
With a sigh, she sat down across from him.
He shoved the coffee closer.
With a consenting eye roll, she took a quick swallow, and set it firmly back on his side of the table. “Happy?”
No response.
It was one of those silences that felt like an opening, and she caved forward, bracing her elbows on the table. “I can’t believe that happened today,” she groaned in a quiet voice.
“Your psycho fucked up family is trying to take you back? I can believe it.”
“I can’t believe I let them get near Ava.”
Michael gave her a steady look. “You didn’t.”
“What do you call it then?” she challenged, anger rising against despair, the two winding together into one ugly plait. “I should never have been at her house. I should never have exposed her–”
“You didn’t expose her to anything.”
“I exposed her to me!” Her hands fell down onto the table and curled into fists. “To me, Michael, and I knew better.”
He made a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat. “Will you just calm down? You didn’t do anything wrong. And after tonight, it won’t matter anymore.”
“You found them?”
“Working on it.”
“They won’t go back to the house, you know. You can’t find them sitting at home waiting on you.”
“I know that,” he snapped. “Stop, okay? Don’t worry about it. This is my problem.”
She pressed her lips together against a protest.
His
problem. He’d taken it on as such, pulling the mantle fully onto his shoulders, trying to leave hers bare and light. Did he even know the kind of wonder and love that inspired in her?
“Be careful,” she said. “No man who believes he has God on his side makes impatient mistakes. Abraham and Jacob are dangerous.”
“So am I.”
She felt a faint smile tugging at her lips. “I know that. Thank God.”
She swung her legs to the side, gathering herself to get up – the bar was swarming with patrons, people on their feet and shuffling back and forth to the pay phones, the rest rooms, the jukebox; she had to get back to her customers. She pulled up short, though, when she saw two men standing at the end of their table. Amid the intensity of their conversation, and the noise of the bar, neither of them had heard anyone approach. And there they were, like a matched pair, in their straight-leg jeans and dirty Carhartt jackets.
Abraham and Jacob.
Holly opened her mouth but could produce no sound. She had no breath; there was no air in her lungs or moisture on her tongue. She couldn’t look at Michael for a reaction, because her eyes refused to swerve away from her father’s face.
Abraham didn’t smile; somehow, it would have been easier if he had. With grave seriousness, he said, “Hello, Holly.”
Jacob, always the less tactful of the two, said, “Is this what you’ve done? Thrown in with one of these bikers?” He turned a sneering glance on Michael. “Ain’t you the one that’s s’posed to come kiss us in our sleep? Won’t your boss like to hear where your hands have been.” He laughed, seeming delighted by the prospect.
“It’s time to come home, girl,” Abraham said. “You had your fun, and now you’ll have to pray for the Lord’s forgiveness for the sins you’ve committed.”
He reached toward her.
Holly heard the soft whisper of Michael pulling the knife out of his boot and risked her first glance at him. He didn’t appear to have moved, but one hand was in his lap, and she knew the knife was in it.
Abraham had heard the sound too, and he was frozen, his hand hovering a few inches from her.
“Hol,” Michael said in a low, even tone. “You sit right there, sweetheart. Don’t move.”
The Jessup brothers sensed what was about to happen the heartbeat before it did. They leapt back, and Michael was right after them, flying from his seat, making a reach for Jacob with one hand while he brought the knife up with the other.
Jacob had the barest head-start, though, and dodged the blade, shoving his brother sideways into a table as they both fled for the door.
The table tipped sideways, its contents sliding to the floor. Beer fountained in a tall golden plume. French fries scattered everywhere. Patrons yelled and shouted, and all eyes went to the trio hammering across the boards to the door: the two men in front of the one with the wicked length of knife.
In the chaos, Holly lurched to her feet and took off after them.
Outside, the street was clogged with evening traffic, the streetlamps burning bright smears against the dark sky. Abraham and Jacob had dodged between cars and were on the opposite side of the road, jogging down the sidewalk toward the ruined Buick she recognized all too well.
Michael was still on her side of the street, passing headlights sliding down the knife as he looked for an opening. One wasn’t coming, though, and he leaned forward at the waist, prepared to make a run for it.
“Michael, no!” Holly grabbed at the back of his cut and he tried to shrug her off, changing course, heading up this sidewalk instead, to run parallel of them.
“Michael!” She latched on with both hands, trying in vain to pull him back. “You can’t catch them now, let them go!”
He spun to face her, and his eyes were wild and white-rimmed.
“Wait,” she pleaded. “They’re trying to get you off-balance. They knew we’d both be there and they came in on purpose. Don’t chase after them right now.
Wait
. Please.”
She curled her hands around his forearms, and felt the tension in them beneath his jacket sleeves. “Michael.”
His swallowed, his throat working, and seemed to collect himself. He glanced down at her, opened his mouth to speak –
And his phone rang.
He couldn’t take her with him to the clubhouse.
They
were there. Michael stood for a long moment, blindly watching the traffic, trying to decide where it was safe to leave her. The loft, he finally decided. Two flights up and secured behind heavy locks. Rapunzel wouldn’t have been safer there.
He left her sitting on the side of her bed, his gun in her hands. “Don’t leave for any reason,” he told her. She was shaking, but she nodded. He had no time to console her; Ghost was waiting for him.
The Jessup brothers were sitting in the common room when he walked in. Relaxed, comfortable, they were on one of the sofas, beers in their hands. Walsh and Tango were with them, and their calm was a deceptive mask. Walsh had one hand resting on his thigh as he sat in a recliner opposite the brothers, within close reach of the gun at his waistband.
Michael wasn’t prepared for the hot blast of rage, the way seeing them was a physical burning sensation inside him.
He ought to kill them right now. He could, he reflected, and probably neither Walsh nor Tango would interfere. He could cross to the couch in two long strides and take Walsh’s gun from him. But, no – he didn’t want to shoot them. He wanted their blood on his hands. He wanted to feel their skin give as the blade passed through it. He wanted to slaughter them like hogs.
Walsh’s gaze flicked up to his face, expression a subtle warning, like he could read Michael’s intent. “Ghost’s waiting for you in the chapel.”
The Jessup brothers were watching him, and their bold appraisal was a mockery. They knew he didn’t have leave to do anything to them here. They knew they were safe for the moment.
“Okay,” he said, and headed that way, each step more difficult than the last. He couldn’t recall a time when self-control had ever been a problem. Maybe that was why it was being so thoroughly tested now.