At eighteen, she’d unknowingly met a few Moriarty street soldiers at a house party. They all said the same thing about her—a daydream doll-baby, sweet as a slice of cherry pie. She was an easy target if Cal ever got too close.
Liam had put his foot down, though. Going after the children of their enemies was dirty business, and Emory, not quite chief then, had argued the risks outweighed any benefit.
But Emory was nothing if not a man of his word, even the ones he had to eat. And he did, one after the next, because he’d been dead wrong. Sweet Amelia wasn’t the docile little darling he thought she’d be, and she got her licks in well and truly.
Jack sat up and planted his feet on the floor. “Don’t you think it’s strange how quickly Richard threw her under the bus?”
Threw was a generous understatement. Hurled was more apt and on par for a coward. Emory only had to bloody Rich’s nose for him to divulge that Amelia had what he was after.
“I think he would’ve sold her out to the Velascos too. We just got to him first. Why else would he know when and why she’s leaving Portland and where she’s going? I think he planned to weaponize that information if push came to shove.”
“If the Velascos wanted her, why not something targeted?” Jack asked. The same question hounded Emory. “They could’ve nabbed her on the street or waited ’til she left town. What was the point of a massacre? And we were there too, man. They could’ve lit us up and called it collateral.”
Emory scanned the door to the hall and leaned forward. Delicate light swathed the room, and faint laughter filtered from the basement lounge below. Jack matched the move toward secrecy.
“It wasn’t a courtesy that they didn’t,” Emory said as quiet as his deep voice could manage. “It was a message—what they’re capable of, the risks they’re willing to take, how far they’ll go. Whoever is at the helm of the Velascos now, last night marked his arrival on the scene.”
A chill spread down Emory’s spine and hollowed out his belly. Jack slumped deeper into his seat. They both felt it—the haunt in the corner, the shadows creeping in.
The Velasco-Moriarty ceasefire was just a shaky gentlemen’s agreement forged between Philippe and Liam a decade ago. With the old guard of Velasco leadership missing, dead, or exiled, the agreement crumbled with blood-soaked spats, and the Moriartys backslid into an all-out war with an enemy they no longer knew.
The Velascos ousted Philippe and welcomed in his place depravity Emory couldn’t reason with. Prickly bastard though he was, Philippe understood where to draw the line to keep the peace. Their new chief—whoever he was—clearly did not.
Jack flicked the wheel of his lighter and stared at the flame. “This is just the beginning.”
Emory nodded. “Undoubtedly, yes.”
Liam wanderedin then, smelling like campfire and nursing a drink. Perched at the wood mantle, he struck a match and held the flame to his cigar. When it took, he flicked the match into the fireplace and turned to Emory.
“About earlier,” he said between puffs, “who handled Damon?”
Emory peered at Liam from beneath his brow. “I did.”
The first rule of conduct—Emory owned the blood on his hands. Tucked in his sock drawer were tally marks of kills neatly penned in a pocket-sized notebook.
It wasn’t about conquest, but inventory. Every so often, he looked over the count. He owed apologies to some and remembered the faces of a few. It kept him honest, he reasoned, accountable for the lives he took.
Maybe Amelia Havick might like to know that. Maybe she’d shut that beautiful mouth of hers if she saw the count, far fewer than the heaps of souls she assumed he reaped. She’d think twice then about calling him a monster.
“Next time, hands off,” Liam said. “Let the captains or their men handle business. We don’t need you wrapped up because you can’t control your temper.”
“I control it just fine.”
Liam slapped his knee with a forceful laugh, more a guffaw, really. Another puff of the cigar wiped his smile clean and his gaze sharpened.
“The whole room watched you blow his kneecaps out. And for what, huh?” He looked at Jack but jabbed a thumb in Emory’s direction. “Getta load of Em the tough guy. Big fuckin’ brute.”
Emory’s back peeled from the sofa, but he withheld heat to snub the bait and prove a point. Liam kept a keen eye on him with a Cheshire smile shrouded in smoke.
“You forget how I came up,” Emory said coolly, “hands on and they’re bloody. I wanted a job done clean. It’s not what I got. I can and will still handle business myself. Don’t ever forget that.”
Liam pointed at Emory and stared down his finger like the barrel of a gun. “Keep your head. It’s the last I’ll say.”
“Thelast you’ll say,” Emory chuckled. “Not likely.”
In the foyer, Mirabelle hurried barefoot past the parlor door. She carried a dustpan and, by the sound of it, a bag of broken glass.
“What happened?” Emory hollered.
