Colm pulls out his gun and points it at Father, barking the order to freeze. I was already impressed that he agreed to help me with this, but now he’s actually turned on his boss, I know how deep his loyalty lies.
Also, behind Micah there are two more men. One is huge, with long dark hair and enough tattoos to make his otherwise pale skin blend into the darkness. I think I recognize him as the mechanic who works here. He’s holding a hunting rifle pointed at my father, although I can tell from his stance that he’s not happy about it.
The other man is my size, but somehow more menacing than the big guy. He’s holding his weapon like it’s as natural as breathing air. He follows Micah with quick, easy steps, nevertaking his eyes off his target, and looks more in his element here than any of the rest of us.
I’m assuming these are Micah’s friends he talks about. Apparently, I even met one of them while I was unconscious and feverish, but I don’t remember. All I want to know is where someone like him finds friends like this.
Micah is always brave. But he’s never looked more set on anything than he is on getting to me. By the time he reaches me, kneeling in the dirt to help pull me into a sitting position, Father is surrounded and letting his gun dangle limply between his fingers.
I’m half-sitting, half-leaning in Micah’s lap as he grabs my face and examines me.
“Tadhg! Can you hear me? Look at me.”
He looks me over, which is something he’s had to do far too many times.
“I’m okay, Bambi.” My voice is barely a croak, and it hurts to push the words through, but I manage it.
“Goddamn right you are,” he says, still touching me. “Idiot. Big dumb mafia idiot.”
I try to speak again, but it comes out as a cough. I know what he means though. This wasn’t the plan. I wasn’t supposed to rile him up. I was supposed to present the terms and walk away.
Father, meanwhile, is watching us with something between awe and revulsion on his face. It’s as if he can’t settle on the correct emotion, so he’s filtering through too many of them at once.
“Savage, what are you doing?” he asks.
“That’s not his fucking name!” Micah is still holding my face as he yells at Father. He flinches away a little, because he holds the same in-built fear of the man that I do, but at least he can push past it. “He’s your son. Your fucking child. You named him. You raised him. And now you want to kill him?”
Father doesn’t say anything. His eyes narrow and he settles into his stance, like any trepidation he had about his own safety is gone, even though no one has stopped pointing a gun at him.
Micah leans his forehead against mine for just a second, taking a deep breath, before he lets me go. When he stands up, I feel cold and empty, but I don’t try to stop him. If anyone can succeed where I failed, it’s him.
“I swear to Beelzebub, I’m over this fucking cloak and dagger bullshit. I need you to focus, Patrick.” The sharpness in his tone seems to take everyone aback, as well as the way he rounds on Father and draws himself up to the most intimidating version of himself. Even Father seems taken aback by the sudden shift. “Tadhg told you he’s done. He’sdone. He’s going to stay here and live his life, while you and all your cronies leave both of us the fuck alone. And my mom. She’s out, too, whether she wants to be or not. You’re going back to Oklahoma, just like you want, so none of us have to ever look at each other’s faces again. And if you need that upstanding, heteronormative, well-behaved successor so badly, look behind you.”
Father turns around reluctantly and eyes Colm, who is still holding a gun in his direction but with less intent, now. Colm meets his eye and shrugs, as if all this makes sense to him. Which it does, to be fair. Colm is exactly the kind of person Father should want as lieutenant. Calm, rational, and utterly dedicated to the Banna.
“It can all be very simple and painless. Eamon is gone, and he was the one causing all the drama with his fucking lies, anyway. I bet nobody else even cares if Tadhg slinks off into the night. All they care about is making their money. They’ll all back Colm if you tell them to.”
I can see Father’s jaw clench, the muscles jumping as he internally chafes at being dictated to by someone he most likely thinks of as sub-human.
“And if I don’t? Your little friends will shoot me and spend a few hours gloating until the Banna come for you all?”
The less huge one of Micah’s friends waves his gun at Father like a ‘hello’, a wide grin on his face.
“We haven’t officially met. My name’s Tristan and this is Ford. Your shitty little friend blackmailed us into doing some bitch work for your organization. We thought we would help Micah and also piggy-back on the whole ‘free me, free me,’ situation. Like he said, Eamon’s dead and he was the toxic piece of glue holding all this shit together. Time for you to go home and all of us to go back to normal.”
There’s no hiding the combination of sass and disdain in his voice. He stands up to Father like he does this every day and doesn’t give a shit what the man thinks.
“And if you don’t,” Micah says. “There’s a very long, very detailed dossier of information that we’ve all compiled, sitting on a lawyer’s desk, waiting to be sent to the feds. You’d best believe WITSEC will snap us up—all of us—with the amount of dirt we collectively know. It’s extreme, sure. But I want you to know, Pat, from the bottom of my heart. If ruining my own life is what it takes to ruin yours and put you in federal prison, it’s still worth it.”
Micah’s in his face as he says this, unblinking and undeterrable.
I expect Father to rage again. I even pull myself unsteadily to my feet to get ready for it. There’s no way he won’t call Micah’s bluff.
Instead, my father looks around at all the men surrounding him and he literally sags.
He looks exhausted. He looks at each of them in turn before he turns his gaze to me, and this time I win the fight not to shrink under it.
“Fine.”
