“She isseventeen–”
“So was I!” She threw her hands up in helpless supplication, letting them slap back against her thighs. “And you were almost his age and I seem to remember your hand down my jeans in back of the liquor store about twenty minutes after we met!”
His face was all planes and angles. He folded his arms and stared across the room, at the turned-down bed. “That was different.”
“How?” Maggie demanded. “Please, for the love of God, Kenneth, explain to me how that was even a little bit different.”
“It just was,” he growled. “You knew what you were doing. You–”
“I was a slut? Is that what you’re reaching for?” She slammed the closet doors and went to flounce down on the end of the bed, arms knotted across her middle. “I’d been pawed at by two boys” – she held up two fingers – “in my class, and you knew exactly how much I didn’t know. Age didn’t seem to slow you down then.”
“It’s different,” he insisted, but she could see some of the fight bleeding out of him.
Maggie softened her tone. “Because she’s your daughter, and it’s always different with daughters.”
He swallowed hard, Adam’s apple punching in his throat. “After everything I did for him…”
“There’s two different kinds of bodyguards,” Maggie said. “The ones who care, and the ones who don’t. You picked one who ended up caring…and now you want to crucify him for caring too much. You can’t have it both ways, baby. If I’ve learned anything from club life, it’s that.”
Ghost shoved away from the wall and left with his shoulders set at high angles.
Twenty-Five
Five Years Ago
They were avoiding him. All his brothers; they tactfully turned their heads, and found other paths to tread. No one wanted to make small talk; no one even wanted to make eye contact. Not out of fear, he knew. Not out of any kind of respect, or even disgust. This was about a decision made, one that had been hammered out in the cold predawn before he pulled onto the lot. He hadn’t been to the clubhouse in thirty-six hours, but it felt like years. Like a lifetime had flashed by in the time since Carter Michaels had brought them Ava’s phone.
It was Walsh who’d been elected messenger, stone-cold Walsh with the flat blue eyes. He stood propped back against the bar, arms folded, looking like he didn’t care about anyone or anything.
There was a flicker of question in his eyes, though, as he became the first man to look Mercy in the eye that morning. “Ghost’s in the chapel, waiting for you.”
“Thanks.”
Collier and James stood just outside the chapel doors. Collier gave him a halfhearted half-smile. James clapped him on the shoulder, but said nothing. He’d relented, then; whatever Ghost had wanted in this case, James had approved it. Already, Ghost was casting his shadow over the president’s chair, eclipsing his predecessor with brute force.
Inside, the chapel was dark as evening, the lamplight finding places to hide in the deep corners, the folds of the velvet-seated chairs. Ghost stood with his back to the doors, behind Troy’s favorite chair, a lit cigarette smoldering in one hand.
“Take a seat,” he said, his voice emotionless.
Mercy closed the doors behind him and walked down to his usual chair, down near the foot, and as he did, Ghost moved in the opposite direction, to the head, until he stood behind James’s seat, hands braced on the ornate back of the chair. Mercy sat, and folded his hands on the table, and unlike the rest of his brothers, he didn’t shy away from direct eye contact.
Ghost was a man out of time, some displaced warrior king deserving of better vestment than denim and leather, more dignified than the wallet chain at his hip, in need of an audience more tractable than his one-man punching bag.
There was no ramp-up. There never was with Ghost. “I’ve thought about it, and thought about it,” he began, his eyes hardening. “And I still can’t understand why the kid I brought into the club, and gave a job to, and gave a life to, and kept out of a Louisiana prison cell, would repay me by getting my underage daughter pregnant.”
He lifted a hand to stay comment. “No. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. I’ve made my decision.”
Mercy waited, placid on the outside, fuming on the inside.
“You’re going back to Louisiana. You’ll turn in your release paperwork today. I already talked to Bob; he’s ready to accept your application. You can leave first thing in the morning.”
“That’syourdecision?” Mercy said, quietly. “Releasing a member is a club decision. That’s a vote at table. Or do the rules only matter when you want them to? Maybe the club really doesn’t look after its own. Do I get to choose at least?” He tapped the dog tatted on his arm. “Fire or knife? Or can someone drag Ziggy down here to have it blacked over?”
Mercy watched Ghost bite down hard on his temper. “This isn’t that kind of release. It’s a transfer.”
“No, you wouldn’t want to get rid of me for good. I’m toouseful.”
“You’re too reckless. You almost killed that kid.”
