Page 112 of Tony

“What?” I ask. Confused.

“Why the fuck are you here?” Vann spits.

Midnight smiles. And I can’t tell if she’s one of those people who just presents as mouthy—like Belinda. Or if she’s hiding a deep, dark secret weapon that can annihilate the world when you’re not looking—like Soshee.

“OK,” Midnight says. “I see that we’re all a little tense after that whole ‘we had an FBI agent killed with poison by a Company assassin’ conversation.”

“That’s not what we said,” I object.

“Close enough.” Midnight shrugs. She points at me. “You are going home. Tomorrow.” She points at Soshee. “You’re going with him. Pack your shit and show up at the Fort Collins airport tomorrow at noon.”

“What?” I say. “You can’t fucking—”

“I can,” Midnight says. Sternly. And with a new look in her eyes that makes me pause when I see it. “And I am. You are leaving town, Tony Dumas. You’ve found enough evidence to assure your brother, Alonzo, that nothing is OK. That’s fine. Because it’s not. We’ll figure out the rest when I join my people in Key West next week. Got it? Good. Now you two—”

“No, no, no,” I say. Stepping forward. “You’re not calling the shots here. We don’t answer to you.”

Vann steps forward too. “You don’t run this town. We do.”

Midnight cocks her head at him. Grins with mocking friendliness. “You sure about that, Vann?”

Vann grins back. It’s his self-confident grin. The one he unleashes when things start to not go his way. Like he’s gonna give everyone a moment to catch up to his awesomeness. “I have three brothers just like me down the street, a brother-in-law with a gang of friends who took care of you guys once already, and an ex-Company assassin called Sasha on my side. So, yeah,” Vann growls. “I’m very fucking sure.”

“Hmm,” Midnight says. Her gaze lingers on Vann for a moment, then switches to me. “OK. Fine. He wants to play bad-boy biker with us? He’s right. There’s not much we can do about that. But you, Tony?” She shakes her head. “You don’t have that luxury.”

I put up my hands and shrug. “Hey, I have three brothers too. Not to mention three brothers-in-law by the name of Boston.”

“And don’t forget your cousin-in-law,” Soshee says. Sidling up next to me and hooking her hand around my arm. “That’s four Bostons. Five, if you count me.”

“Right,” Midnight says. Her smiles drops and her mouth forms a dead-straight line across her face. “As I said. It’s not enough.”

“Sounds like enough to me,” Belinda says.

“It’s not,” Midnight says. But she doesn’t look at Belinda. Her gaze is most definitely trained on me. “Trust me, Tony. None of that will save you or your family. Not with the shit you’re involved in. That’s why I’m here.” She looks at Vann, Belinda, and Soshee in quick succession. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“Protect us from what?” Vann asks.

“Well, not you,” Midnight admits. “Your family is out now, Vann. And if you were smart, you’d keep it that way. Do you really want to drag them all back into the secrets? Spencer has settled. He has kids, Vann. Lots of them. All his friends do too. They got out and Spencer took your family with him by marrying your sister. Sasha, on the other hand.” Midnight bobs her head back and forth like she’s non-committal about this one. “They’re not done with her just yet. Lots of missing pieces with that one.”

“So what?” Vann snaps. “Tell us something we don’t know.”

“OK.” Midnight looks back at me. “I will tell you something you don’t know. I wasn’t going to say anything. Didn’t want you leaving town all stressed out about prison and whatnot. Didn’t want you returning home and getting those brothers you have all excited. But you seem to be forcing my hand.”

I don’t want that sick feeling creeping through my stomach. I really wish it wasn’t there.

But it is.

It’s a deep, gut-wrenching feeling that has been living inside me ever since I agreed to help my father smuggle kids into the United States nearly a decade ago.

And I recognize it now.

It’s dread.

Just thinking that word shifts my world and changes the whole idea of why I came here in the first place.

I thought it was Belinda. I really did. And for sure, we did need to sort this out. But that wasn’t all of it. She was there when that shit went down eight years ago, so yeah. She was part of it.

Just not all of it.