Rafe drops his hands to his sides, but he doesn’t take his seat again.
Coco takes a slow sip and sets her glass down with a soft clink. “Now that you boys have gotten that out of your systems, remember who you are.”
No one moves. I’m not even sure anyone takes a breath.
“We’re a family,” she continues, voice softer and somehow more dangerous. “We fight. We bleed. Then we move forward. Because the only people in this world you can count on are in this backyard.”
For a second, I almost feel twelve again. Scraped knees, split lip, learning what loyalty costs.
Coco's chair creaks as she leans back, ice clinking against her glass. Her eyes, the same blue-gray as Bishop's, sweep across our bloodied knuckles. The corner of her mouth twitches.
“Now.” Her fingernail taps once against the rim of her glass. The sound hangs in the air between us. Bishop shifts his weight, jaw clenched tight enough that a muscle jumps beneath the skin. When I swallow, I taste copper.
She waits, patient as a sniper, until the silence itself becomes an accusation. “Who wants to tell me why my sons are throwing punches over a girl?”
Bishop lets out a short, humorless laugh. He leans over an spits out blood. “Go on, Gage. Tell Ma how you’re breaking her only rule.”
My stomach drops like I've just missed a step in the dark, acid churning hot and sour. Coco doesn't even glance at Bishop. Instead, her eyes lock onto mine, unblinking.
“What did you do?” she asks quietly.
It shouldn’t hurt. It shouldn’t feel like a blade finding a soft place.
But it does.
Before I can answer, Bishop’s shoulders square. Something stubborn and ugly flashes across his face.
“He brought Bellamy Hale into a job,” he says, looking right at me.
Everything stops. The breeze dies against my skin, leaving sweat to cool in place. Even the goddamn night seems to hold its breath, cicadas cutting their chorus short.
Coco goes very, very still. Not the frozen stillness of shock or the rigid stillness of anger. This is the liquid stillness of a predator—muscles coiled, senses heightened, perfectly calibrated for the kill. Her manicured fingers rest against the weathered tabletop, red nails like droplets of fresh blood against the wood.
Her gaze sweeps the table, slow and deliberate, pale eyes reflecting the porch light as she catalogs each of our expressions, like she's counting pieces on a board she already knows how to clear. Then it lands on me, heavy as a physical weight.
“You brought her in,” she says quietly. “Bellamy Hale.”
The words stick in my throat like sand. “She found it first. We're?—”
“Yet somehow,” Coco interrupts, her voice sliding through my flesh like a stiletto knife. “My sons are the ones with blood on their knuckles.” Her gaze gentles just enough that I can seethe disappointment beneath the steel. “When you let an outsider into family business,” she says, each word precise as a bullet. “You put your name behind hers.”
Coco's hands come together on the tabletop, fingers interlacing with deliberate precision. “And if something goes sideways, the one who vouched takes the fall. Not your brothers. You ready for that?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “Ma?—”
“No.” One finger lifts. That’s all it takes to shut me up. “Their mistakes are your mistakes. Their luck is your luck. And their consequences”—her mouth curves, sharp and humorless—”are yours.”
The silence turns heavy, and I force myself to breathe through it. I sink into my chair.
“I didn’tbring her in. I proposed a partnership for one job. She has the in we’d need. Working this together bumps the take up considerably. I haven’t told her shit about us.”
That last part comes out sharper than I mean it to.
Coco’s brow lifts a fraction. “How do you know this isn’t a setup?”
“Because she has more to lose than we do,” I say without hesitation. “She’s already inside. If this blows up, it hits her first.”
Her fingers tap once against the condensation on her glass. “And why am I hearing about this now?”
