Mercy nodded. “Yeah.”
Ghost turned back to Rottie and Michael. “Cattle property afterward.”
That’s where they’d bury the body. If that tract of land ever fell out of Teague hands, and was developed, the backhoes would break ground on a cemetery’s-worth of unsanctioned graves. How many bones lay under that earth? Mercy wondered. Enough to bury them all four times over.
They were walking away, heading for the truck they’d left around the corner, when Mercy felt something catch at his sleeve.
Ghost’s hand, his face harsh in the shadows. “I’m tired of having the Ava conversation with you.”
On some level, Mercy wondered if this was a test. If he backed off at this point, he’d never have the man’s respect as a father. If he pushed, he could see himself banished back to New Orleans.
He took a gamble on test.
“Yeah,” he said, “I bet you can’t wait to have that little chickenshit Robbie sitting across from you every Thanksgiving.”
“It’s Rodney,” Ghost corrected.
“Is it?”
“I…yeah. I think. Richie, maybe?”
“Either way” – Mercy shook the hand off his arm – “I’m sure he’ll make you a great son-in-law.”
He was four steps away when Ghost called after him: “You’re a goddamn asshole.”
Mercy saluted him with a wave over his head.
**
“It just…it doesn’t piss me off. It’s just that, damn, how old do I gotta be before I’m not some stupid kid to him, you know?” Aidan put a spin on the next dart he tossed at the board; it spiraled in tight gyrations, feathers blurring, and sank into the bull’s eye.
When he turned, Tango was leaning back against the edge of the pool table, hands braced on the wood, face restive and thoughtful, as per usual.
“Ghost has really high expectations is all.”
Aidan sighed.
“Look at how he is with your sister; he’s a hardass. It’s not about anything you’re doing wrong; it’s just about him.”
Aidan picked up another dart and ran a fingertip through the feathers. “Yeah, maybe.” But even if that was true, how could he do anything right? His old man was such an unquestionable leader that he’d been content to sit back all these years, still feeling sixteen and like it was just a matter of time before he was taken into Ghost’s confidence and groomed for the throne. But suddenly, he was thirty, and he was still the dumb kid of the club, and Ghost didn’t rely on him for anything other than a warm body to fill a chair at church.
“Bro,” Tango said with a chuckle, “are you actually bitching about not having to go help torture a guy to death?”
“Well, when you put it like that…” He sent the dart flying, sinking it right beside the first. “But I thought it’d be different by now, you know?”
He turned again, and the look on Tango’s face instantly made him regret what he’d just said. His best friend had no family to speak of, no support system outside the club; he didn’t have a father to rebel against, and here he was offering advice, being the sympathetic one.
Aidan resolved to let it go. He picked up another dart. “Tournament?” he asked, spinning it between his fingers.
Tango lost some of his vacant sadness; he grinned. “Last tournament we had, I ended up owing you lunch for a month.”
“I’ll throw with my bad hand,” Aidan said, swapping the dart to his left.
The front door opened, the sound sending electricity under the floorboards; Aidan felt it go up through his boot soles, tightening his stomach. The kidnapping crew was back.
Rottie came in first, dragging his folded-up ski mask off his head, dark hair springing up in staticky clumps. He pulled a stack of file folders from his waistband. “Ratchet, I brought you a present.”
The secretary was out of his recliner and halfway to him already, hand outstretched for the files.
