“Or else what?” Ty crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ll kick me out? Go ahead. It’s not like I want to live here anyway.”
Taking a deep breath and counting to ten helped Lucky calm his nerves. “Until you’re eighteen, you have to live where your mother tells you to. Right now, that’s in this house.” Over the years Lucky had lived in much worse places—some with bars on the windows and doors, and some guy with a ridiculous nickname determined to make Lucky his bitch.
The last guy who’d tried sang opera for a week.
Ty kicked up his glare. Too bad for him seeing the same expression on Charlotte’s face far too often left Lucky immune.
Lucky fought not to glare back, fighting the same battle of wills he’d once fought with his father. His mother used to tell him and his siblings, “Your kids are going to be twice as bad as you are.”
Maybe Lucky shouldn’t have kids. They’d be delinquents for sure.
Lucky tilted his head right and left, cracking his neck and easing some of the tension out of his shoulders. Intimidation never worked on a pissed off young ‘un.
“Look, kid,” Lucky began.
“I’m not a kid.”
Lucky studied the product of his sister’s raising. No, not a kid. Lucky had arrested guys Ty’s age for drugs and other crimes—one he’d even had to bring up on murder charges.
No longer a boy, not yet a man, and so ripe for trouble.
“No, you’re not a kid,” Lucky tried again, “but you’re sure the hell acting like one. Pass the Oreos.”
If Ty glowered any harder Lucky’s head might explode, yet he snagged the cookies and handed Lucky the pack. Even with his stomach tied in knots, Lucky took one, to at least share something with his nephew.
“You ain’t got the right to talk to me about rules and being a kid.” Ty practically spat the words. “Mom told me all about you, what you did.”
Lucky winced. “Yes, I made some bad choices. I deeply regret one”—okay, maybe a few— “I’m sorry. I know it had to be rough on you, having an uncle in prison.”
“Hard? Dude, I thought you were the coolest thing ever.” Ty slapped a hand over his mouth.
What? “What did you say?”
Ty stared at the floor for a long, long moment. “I said, it was pretty cool to have an uncle in prison. All my friends thought so. I mean, before you got busted, you had an awesome car, went everywhere, had lots of money.”
Lucky cringed. “What I did wasn’t cool, it was dam… Darned stupid.”
“You can go ahead and say damned, you know. I’ve heard it often enough.”
“And have your grandma wash my mouth out with soap if she found out? No, thank you.” Old fears died hard.
The corner of Ty’s mouth twitched, then stopped. “What wasn’t cool was what you did to the man who bought Mom a house.”
He should’ve known his sister’s kids would know. He’d never expected them to be homophobes, not with a mother like Charlotte, but one never knew. “What, exactly, did I do to him?” Lucky snagged another cookie to have something to do.
“Turned on him. Testified against him. He killed himself because of you, after all he did for this family. Then you got out of jail to work for narcs. Mom told me all about it when she said we’d be moving here, so I wouldn’t find out on my own.”
Oh, fucking hell. “I don’t regret what I did, but you need to know, this man you’re so upset about?” Lucky made sure he had Ty’s full attention. “His name is Victor Mangiardi, the drug lord I worked for. He didn’t kill himself. He made a deal too.”
Ty narrowed his eyes. “He what?”
Lucky shrugged. How to explain Victor, and his continued existence in Lucky’s life, if from a distance? “He’s now working for an international drug trafficking task force. Sort of like my job, only world-wide.”
Eyes nearly sparking, Ty folded his arms across his chest. “Mom told me he died.”
“I only found out recently that he’s still alive. I might not have told your mother the whole story. I don’t want her to worry about me, and talking about what I do scares her.”
Ty pushed his chin out, a gesture so much like Bo’s it made Lucky’s chest ache. “Doesn’t matter. I barely remembered you, but Mom showed me pictures of you and me. Todd talked about you. I couldn’t wait until you got out so I could meet you.
