“Fuck you!” Mace growls, coming around the table “You think you’re gonna send us off on another risky mission while you sit back here drinking yourself blind? Use the club to stroke your ego and relive your glory days?”
“I said sit?—”
“Those days are long gone, old man!” Mace barks over him, veins throbbing in his neck. “Time you accept it! I’m not letting you pull another Logan situation, sending us in blind to shit that backfires—shit that gets uskilled!”
“I SAID SIT DOWN!”
“OR WHAT? HUH?” Mace steps forward, his clenched fists and fast stride speaking for themselves.
Cash and Ozzie jump up, getting between them before any punches can be thrown. Mace tries to push past them, but Cash holds him back while Ozzie keeps Tom where he is.
My old friend actually laughs at his son’s explosive rage. He stands back and drains his beer can and watches him damn near wrestle Cash out of the way.
“Settle down, boys. I ain’t ever backed down from a fight. Sure as hell didn’t behind prison walls, and I ain’t gonna start now just ’cuz my pussy son wants to step to me.”
“I’ll have you knocked out in five seconds!” Mace snarls. “You’re a drunk, delusional old fool talking shit. Only reason I haven’t already is ’cuz some part of me still pities you!”
“You’re weak,” Tom spits, dripping with contempt. “WEAK!”
That’s enough.
I rise from my chair, authority in my tone and warning in my glare. “Tom, you’re out of line. You better get your act together.Now.”
Tom rounds on me, his features twisting with familiar resentment. It’s the same look he gave me before he went to prison. It says he still thinks I set him up.I’mthe reason he was sentenced to ten years.
The silence stretches between us as he steps toward me, his swagger a mix of ego and alcohol, neither one doing him any favors.
“The only ones who need to get their act together,” he says, “are all of you. ’Cuz none of you know your fucking place anymore. Better get with the program soon, or you might find yourselves ass outta luck.”
He turns and strides to the office, slamming the door hard.
Mace releases a roar of pure frustration and drives his fist through the wall, leaving a hole in the drywall and blood on his knuckles. Then he storms out without another word.
Cash sighs and follows him. Probably to make sure he doesn’t do something stupider.
“Well…” Ozzie says, rubbing the back of his neck. “That went well.”
“No es tiempo para chistes,” Tito mutters.
Logan slowly rises from his chair. He’s been mostly silent through all of this, watching his father and brother go at it.
To my surprise, he heads toward the back office where his father’s just disappeared to.
I stay at the table, still fuming. My hands clenched and knuckles white.
“What now?” Ozzie asks, glancing over at me.
My gaze pans from the hole Mace left in the wall to the overturned chair and the spilled beer on the floor from Tom’s dramatic gestures.
“Something’s gotta give,” I say. “That’s what.”
The game’s over—the Dallas Stars lost again, no surprise there—and I’m going through my nightly routine.
TV off, lights out, making sure the doors are locked. Same thing I’ve done every night since the divorce.
My phone buzzes. I already know it’s Solana before I check.
Tonight’s the first night in over a week we haven’t talked. No evening call about her day, her audition prep, or therapy appointment.
