I frown. I never really thought about him being afraid of anything. For my entire life, he’s been a cross between a supervillain and an inhuman vigilante. Always there, always waiting, always larger than life.
Does he even feel fear?
“Come on,” Micah says. “There has to be something. Spiders? Clown tchotchkes? Other gangsters? The inevitability of aging? Prison?”
I tilt my head to the side, because maybe he’s onto something.
“The law, maybe. He’s never been to prison, and I know he doesn’t want to go now that he’s getting older. He cares about his reputation and his legacy more than his money, which is why I was always so important to him, I think. I needed to carry on his name. That was what he talked about, anyway.”
Micah looks thoughtful and then pecks me on the lips for good measure.
“Okay. We can work with that. Let’s think.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Savage
This is a bad plan. It had sounded so good when Bambi laid it all out. We went over it and over it and over it in minute detail. Everything made sense the way he’d explained it to me.
Now that I’m standing here, waiting for my father, it feels like a very bad plan. He won’t show up. Or he will show up and he’ll kill me. Or Colm won’t hold up his end of the deal. Or maybe Colm will be the one to kill me.
Okay, I don’t believe the last one. I’ve always trusted him. I shouldn’t, but I do. For whatever reason, I’ve known he’d lay his life on the line for me since the start. He never said it because he rarely says much of anything, but it’s always been true.
I can practically hear Micah’s voice in my head.
“Trust yourself, Tadhg. You’re better than that worthless old fuck in every way.”
Then he’d kissed me goodbye and said,“Come home to me.”
We both agreed he shouldn’t be here. I was ready to fight him over it, but he didn’t push the issue. I think he understood that this was something I needed to do.
I’m standing in some kind of outdoor gym behind an auto shop. I think it’s the same one I visited on my whistle stop tour of the area when I was desperately searching for a job, before I ended up finding Gunnar. There’s an old house a hundred feet away, but both buildings are pitch black and shut up for the night. We’re surrounded by the woods apart from the two-lane road that led here, so it’sdark-dark, and all the homemade gym equipment looms around me like sleeping monsters, or a twisted metal graveyard.
I guess there are worse places to be buried. At least I’m close to Micah here.
His friends own this place but they also have a loose association with the Banna. I didn’t really understand the details when Micah explained them, because my attention was snowing in and out, but he assured me that they were connected enough that Father would trust the place to not be bugged or worry about an ambush being set up, but it was still friendly territory to us, because these guys secretly hate my father and everything he stands for.
Which I get. I might not know the details, but I understand being sucked into something you hate, so I’ll take Bambi’s word for it. They left for the night to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, so it’s just me here. I shouldn’t be nervous. I’ve faced worse odds with a lot less support, but still.
Father always seems to get what he wants. I don’t know how to picture a world where that isn’t true.
When I hear the crunch of gravel under tires, my heart rate skyrockets for a second. But then it happens. Exactly like I was hoping—my on-the-job brain takes over and I focus. My own life becomes inconsequential, and I laser in on the reason I’m here.
Protect Micah. Save myself if I can. But I’m ending tonight with no more ties to Father or his crew no matter what. Dead or alive.
Father eventually rounds the corner, accompanied by Colm, as arranged. Colm’s face is tight. His hand is resting on his hip, like he’s unwilling to let it stray too far from his Beretta, but I couldn’t say what specific part of this is making him uneasy. All of it, I guess.
“What’s the meaning of this, boy?” Father barks as soon as he gets close enough.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Picture Micah, alive and safe.
“I’m here to make a deal, Father.”
Fuck, I hope he can’t hear how my voice is wavering. He squints at me like I said something in an alien language, but he doesn’t interrupt, so I guess that’s a good sign.
“I want out. I’m done. I’m leaving the Banna one way or another and you’re going to let me. No more crime, no more anything, and I never want to see you or speak to you ever again.”
The words come out in such a rush I’m surprised he can make them all out. But by the way his eyes widen and his mouth falls open, he must. There’s a long pause while he processes what I said, and I try to get the pounding of my heart under control.
