“Plus, it’s less the police and more what one particular officer there has been paid quite well to do.”
“And what’s that, Nick?” Teddy asks.
“He’ll be making a call to my associate, who has been instructed that if Hannah and I don’t walk out of here safely at exactly the twenty-minute mark, a series of documents will be sent simultaneously to Agent Grady Bradford in the Eastern District of Texas US Marshals Service and to the head of the criminal division of the US attorney’s office Southern District of Florida.”
“You’re full of shit…” Teddy says.
“Afraid not, Teddy. And if these documents are sent, you will be arrested as soon as you step foot back in the United States…” Nicholas continues, his voice steady. “I’ve been assured of that.”
“Have you lost your fucking mind?” Quinn asks. Her face is getting red with anger, her voice anything but steady.
“You too, Quinn…” Nicholas says. “All three of you, actually. Not to mention most of your siblings.”
“You have,” she says. “You’ve lost your fucking mind.”
“Enough,” Frank says.
His voice is sharp, angry. Which is enough, apparently, for Quinn and Teddy to step off. To quite literally step back.
Though something seems to shift.
Frank moving closer to Nicholas. He smiles at him, but it’s a terrible smile. “What are you starting here, old friend?”
“I didn’t start this. Your children did when they decided not to honor the understanding you and I came to,” he says. “For reasons I’m uninterested in, they started this when they put a bounty on my granddaughter.”
Frank’s smile disappears. And he turns toward his children, hiseyes cold. And menacing. And I know that Nicholas was correct—that whatever Quinn and Teddy authorized here, Frank was not a part of it. He wasn’t a part of that decision to move against our family, not in the way that he would have wanted to be.
Teddy leans in toward Frank. “Could we have a moment alone with you?” he says. “Please?”
“Probably needs to wait, son,” Nicholas says. “We’ve got just a little over eighteen minutes until you’re going to jail.”
This is when Teddy lunges, actually lunges, at Nicholas—and I raise my arm to block him.
It’s instinctual—how fast I move. My arm is in front of Nicholas’s face—my whole body in front of him—the force of Teddy’s blow landing squarely on my jaw.
This sets off Frank’s guards, who move closer to us, surrounding us, until it is there. A gun against my ribs. Its barrel cold and unmitigated. The first time in my life I’ve felt that, as sudden and impossible a thing as I’ve ever felt.
My heart moves into my throat, quick and fierce. My jaw pounding, my ribs pounding. Right up against the gun.
I look around the veranda, waiting for someone to intervene. But everyone is suddenly looking somewhere else. No one is looking at Nicholas, or at me. No one wants to bear witness to any of it: the gun against my rib; the guard’s breath and sweat, tight against my skin; his two companions holding on tight to Nicholas. Eighty people around us and we may as well be alone. No one will do a thing to step in. Not for either of us.
I can taste the blood in my mouth, on the inside of my cheek. The sting growing more intense. My jaw pulsing. This is what real danger feels like, isn’t it? It doesn’t announce itself at the door. It creeps upbehind you until there’s nothing you can do but try—with everything you’ve got left—to breathe into it.
I focus in on Nicholas, who looks calm. He looks calmer than I’ve ever seen him. It levels me out. The guy who was out of breath on the steps is no longer here. The only version of Nicholas present here is strong and unfazed: the guy who orchestrated this confrontation, ready to show everyone why.
“Move them away from Hannah, Frank,” Nicholas says. “Everyone needs to step back. Right fucking now.”
Frank keeps his eyes on Nicholas. Calculating. Then he nods toward his security, and the guards immediately pull back.
They let go of Nicholas—and the guard on me takes the gun off my ribs, the skin where the barrel just was, raw and pounding. My eyes hold on the guards back in their corner, their hidden guns. On the small distance between us.
Frank turns and takes me in, his eyes giving nothing away at first. But I think I see a flash of it in his face—concern for me—my jaw, red and throbbing. But maybe that’s what I want to see.
“We’re not doing this here…” Frank says.
Then he motions toward a private room on the edge of the veranda. Nicholas nods, and we head that way.
I hold my hand to my jaw, try to cup it, cool it out—the pounding pain, my heart beating through it.
