Then he turns and, without another word, disappears through the trees the way we came.
5
Liam
Not mine.
I was a fucking idiot for going there. An even bigger idiot because when I heard those kids in her house, babbling, laughing—I hoped.Hoped.
Not mine.
My stomach wrenches into a tight knot as I speed back toward Margot’s.
I was Lexie’s first, but I wasn’t her last. I wasn’t her only. All these years I’ve been wondering, waiting,wanting, and she’s been raising another man’s kids. I probably haven’t even crossed her mind.
“Fuck!” I slam my fist against the steering wheel. Fog whorls through my headlights, presses against the windows and windshield. I can barely see the black gleam of the road now. “Fuck, fuck,fuck.”
I’m shocked at my own rage. It blasts through me, full-tilt and out of control. I didn’t realize how hooked I was by Lexie, how tight that invisible thread between us had become. It’s through my heart and ribs now, spun between my lungs. I’m choking on it, and on my own naivete—the thing I’ve teased her about so long, come to douse me in oil and strike a match.
And Lexie, this new, dangerous, sharp-eyed and sharp-tongued Lexie—she’d just stand there and watch me burn.
I don’t realize where I’m driving until the bar takes shape in the gloom, lit up like heaven, windows ablaze through the dense fog. The lot is mostly empty, not surprising for a weekday, and when I get out of the Miata and slam the door, the sound echoes out into the woods and sends an owl crooning through the trees.
My feet halt of their own volition, drop root right there through the cracked asphalt.Ben’s. Named after my dad’s old buddy, both of them now long-gone. This was his haunt, my dad. Even when we were kids he was bringing us around here.
Our mom was never in the picture, and when Dad couldn’t make ends meet through construction, he was always picking up the odd job, some legal, most not. He couldn’t very well leave us at home when we were that young, and so we went everywhere with him. His work sites, his unemployment appointments—and here, his safe haven. Margot and I would sit on the patched, worn-thin carpet beneath the bar, collecting peanut shells and pretending we were in the mafia, like the kids at school said Dad was.
The memories catch me like riptide. As I grew up, this became my place too. Me and Milo and Jockey and the other guys ran errands for Dennie—the younger guy Dad worked for. Dennie was a good guy, with long-term mafia ties and friends in the city. But when the drug and gun and real estate money started to dry up here, he packed it up and went back to Boston, where words likemafiaandmoneyandfamilymeant something entirely different.
Maybe that’s why Jockey started dicking around with those guys from out of town. Maybe he wanted more money, or more fame. Maybe he wasn’t cool with letting the organized crime dry up here. In some ways, I don’t blame him for that, not even now. Town’s become just a town. Run-down and ragged, worn at the edges. There are no names here, and no one to fear, much less anyone to look up to.
I could change that. I know I could change that. For Margot, for Dad’s memory—I want to. But more than justice, more than money or pride or face, what I want, right now, is revenge.
Milo wouldn’t have died that day if Jockey hadn’t been working up the city guys. There didn’t have to be bad blood between any of us. Back then it was just rivalry; puffed-up jackasses packing heat and strutting around to prove they were men, they were better than us, they were going to take over this town if we weren’t. And that day, the talk turned to gunfire, and me and Milo were the ones who paid for it.
Now Jockey’s bringing in drugs, hard shit, pitting out what’s left of this place for street cred and petty cash.
What I’ve got with Jockey is personal—but this makes it business. That’s something guys can get behind. Even guys who’ve left the life behind.
I push open the doors, struck hard by the familiarity of Ben’s: stale cigarette smoke, loud honkey music, the salty, oily aroma of something deep-frying. It all peters out hard when I walk in, comes hard into focus. There are fifteen, twenty people in here, contrary to the half-empty lot.Silence falls over them like a veil. The music strikes on, too loud, too garish. None of these people aremypeople—but they know me. I’m the ex-mafia man’s kid, the one whose friend died in a shootout, the one who’s been in prison for three years.
The one who just got out. Nobody knows yet what I’m planning, if I’ll leave or stay, if I’ll let go of that life and Milo’s death or if I’m back for blood. They’re scared, I realize—they think, either way, I’m dangerous. I’m trouble.
Look the part.
I straighten my shoulders, force all the tension out of me. I let a smile rise up to my lips; not so much that I look giddy, just enough I look like I’m not intimidated. I go to the bar.
“Well, fucking,well.” There’s a girl behind the bar I don’t recognize, wild blonde curls and huge dark eyes rimmed in black glitter. She’s wearing a ripped Metallica t-shirt, and beneath the wide open collar, I catch a whole lot of black lace. “Look who got out of prison.”
I cock my head. There’s something familiar about her. “…Marnie?”
“Grew up a bit, didn’t I?” She flashes me a smile and leans both elbows on the bar, pushing up her not-inconsiderable cleavage. “How’s Margot? I haven’t seen her since last month—she did my ink. So fucking talented, that girl.”
Marnie was another of Margot’s friends. I remember her as being goofy and frizzy-haired and quick to laugh.Three years can change a person.My instinct is to yank back from her, to shut this down, remind her I’m the older brother; too old, too off-limits, all because I can’t get Lexie out of my head. But there’s this streak of bitterness poisoning me right now.Lexie’s not interested. Fine.
Doesn’t mean I need to join the fucking nunnery.
“New ink?” I ask, sliding onto the barstool. “Let’s see it.”
