As for me?
I had Mo.
Mo had a great family.
He was giving it to me.
And that meant I was happy.
Mo
They were on meringue cake, eating it in the livingroom, the women sipping Amaretto and Kahlua from his mother’s snifters, sittingon his mother’s couches, absorbed in woman talk.
Mo was standing with the guys, having already devoured hiscake and setting the plate aside when his phone vibrated.
He pulled it out, looked at the screen and glanced toLottie, who had her head bent way back, laughing at something Trine had said(or Lene, whatever).
“Gotta take this,” he muttered to the men and moved to andout the front door.
He’d received a text.
Standing on his mother’s front porch, he made a call.
“Mo,” Brock Lucas answered.
“Hey, Slim,” Mo greeted.“What’s up?”
“We had a situation last night in lockup.”
Mo drew in breath.
“This guy,” Slim went on, “the one who sent those lettersabout Lottie, some of the other men set on him at chow and did a number on himbefore the guards could break it up.”
Jesus shit.
“No idea why,” Lucas kept going.“He’s an easy mark, uptightlike he is, no priors, slight, no experiencelookin’out for himself, definitely not in a situation like that.They could have justscented weak blood and went after it.He’d already had some troublebein’ pushed around.Complained to the guards he’d beenthreatened.They put him in solitary a couple of days and the men who werecausing the problem were moved out, either transferred or they made deals orbail.So they put him back in gen pop.Apparently, those men had friends and hewas still a target.”
“And?”Mo prompted when he didn’t say more.
“They got him to the hospital and fixed him up.But inrecovery, he developed a pulmonary embolism.Lost oxygen to his brain.Theytook him back into surgery, got that fixed too, but the damage was done.”
Mo’s entire body felt tight.
“What damage, Slim?”
“Man’s alive, but braindead,” Slim said.“He’s on arespirator.Considering his inclinations, something my guess due to theirreactions to the trouble he was in they suspected, his family is not tight withhim.They’ve been called in.I don’t know if they’ll elect to take him off themachines.I just know, even if they don’t, this man isn’tgonnabe in a position to hurt Lottie, or anyone.There’s not a blip on him, Mo.He’sbreathing, but he’s still gone.”
Mo didn’t know what he was feeling.
Because he was human, he didn’t want it to be good.
But mostly it was good.
“So it’s over,” Mo noted.
“Not for the boys in lockup who are now also facingmanslaughter charges, but for Lottie, yeah.It’s over.”
Yeah, what he was feeling was good.
