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My eyes track Callum as he rounds on Rosalind, his shoulders tense with something I can’t name as he crashes their mouths together in a painful looking kiss. He seems to be whispering words against her lips, his hands fluttering frantically against her cheeks and hair as if pleading with her to stay there with him, to be there with him. The sincerity of his emotion is difficult to watch, and I turn my attention back to the twins, who are still arguing over Maddock’s wound.
“I’m not putting her down.”
“Yes, you fucking are, or you’ll die, and she’ll be left with no parents at all,” Merrick snaps, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Is that what you want?”
“No, but–”
“Put her down, Maddock,” Grant’s commanding tone brooks no argument, and Maddock’s shoulder slump in defeat. “As soon as Callum pulls himself away from Rosalind, he’ll stitch you up. This is not a discussion,” Grant raises his tone over the sound of Maddock’s protest. It doesn’t matter that Maddock is Grant’s second in command; he has to fall in line as much as the rest of us. “I will not have us compromised in the coming weeks. Not after this.”
Grant gestures to the bodies around us, and my heart rate spikes when I recognize the man lying closest to my feet. I hadn’t been looking at their faces on the way in, not needing to add to the horrors playing behind my eyelids every night. But I’m looking now…
“These are our men.” I had assumed, based on the position of the bodies, that the dead men had been the ones to attack the house, but every single face I see is a MAC. “Why would our men attack you?”
The Brothers are quiet for a moment before Grant speaks, his voice heavy with the weight of what he has to admit. “These are not our men. They report to the Father.”
His words sink to the bottom of my gut–the Father’s men. If there is a clear line between the MACs following the Father and the MACs following the Brothers, then that means… “War.”
“Unfortunately,” Grant agrees, sad eyes trailing over the bodies around us. “One with many casualties, I fear.”
“What can I do?”
“You can watch the bar for me tonight,” Merrick cuts in, moving away from Maddock now that he’s finally cooperating with Callum. “Doyle will be there, but she’s too new to run things solo.”
“Of course.”
“There’s a t-shirt in my car. It’ll be tight, but it’s better than that.” He nods toward my ancient sweatshirt, covered in years of blood stains and coming apart at the seam of one shoulder.
“I’ll grab it on my way out.”
“Theo?” Grant moves a step closer to me, the look in his eye telling me he wishes he didn’t have to say the next part.
“Yes, MacAlister?”
Grant huffs an amused sound at being called the MacAlister. He hated the nickname when we were kids, but he’ll have to come around to it now. It’s his destiny. “I need you to stay out of the Father’s way. Don’t make your alliances known to anyone. If I’m right, he’ll run out of loyal subjects sooner than he thinks.”
“And he’ll start calling in debts.” Twenty years stand between me and the oath I made, but I have no doubt my name is on the Father’s list. A troubling thought pushes to the front of my mind, and I quietly clear my throat. “He won’t use her against me, will he?”
“We won’t let it get that far.” Grant’s voice is calm, steady ground in the eye of this storm. “Let me know the moment he calls you.”
“I will.”
Peaks always has a steady flow of customers, but something feels different tonight. It takes me three hours to realize what has changed. There are women everywhere—standing around every inch of the bar, huddled at each of the tables, and spread across the gaming area. I might not have noticed at all if each one hadn’t been more daring than the last as they waved me down to take their orders.
“Why aren’t any of them shoving money down your shirt?” I huff the words as I pull another twenty-dollar bill from my collar.
Lucy doesn’t even wobble as she turns on the step stool, giving me a knowing look. “Because, unfortunately, they’re not interested in what’s under my shirt.”
I grimace at that, grabbing another crate of whiskey off the floor to replace the empty one on the counter at her side. She’s been restocking the bottles for the last ten minutes, leaving me to face the vulture women alone. “I’ll give you fifty bucks to trade me jobs.”
“You’re not scared of a few women are you, big guy?” She pats me sympathetically on the shoulder, but the effect is somewhat dampened by her biting back a smile.
“Do they do this to Merrick?” My eyes sweep the bar again, counting at least ten more women smiling too brightly at me from every corner of the room.
“No,” she draws out the word, a thoughtful look in her eyes. “But he’s Merrick. He’s all,” she scowls dramatically, puffing up her shoulders in as close an approximation of Merrick’s bulky frame as a four-foot-nothing woman could. “You know?”
Nodding, I reach up to help her down from the step stool. She takes my hand with a grateful smile that reaches all the way to her soft green eyes. If my heart weren’t entirely off the table, I would be tempted to flirt with little Lucy Doyle. I don’t know how far I’d get, considering she’s about a decade younger than me and has talked about literal rainbows more than once in recent memory, but I’d give it a shot.
Not that I’m one to judge people based on their interests, rainbows or otherwise. If anyone ever found out how I fill my free time, they’d have me arrested.
