Five Brothers, page 48
Milo smiles at me. “You had to wait for me to come over here.”
I nod. “Traffic cams and such.”
There are cameras everywhere. If they track his last location, they can track him to us, but when he comes to the Bay, traffic cams lose sight of him long before he crosses the tracks. From there he could’ve gone anywhere. There’s no proof that he came here.
“Well, let’s get it over with,” he spits out. “It’ll take more than five of you to give me a beating I can’t take.”
“I’m not going to hit you.”
His smile falters, but still…he doesn’t seem afraid.
Santos hands me a hunting knife, heat coursing down my arms as I take it. I squeeze my fist around the hilt.
“Can I ask you something?” I peer down at him. “Why do you pay for it? Sex, I mean.”
It isn’t always Bay women he’s fucking, but whoever it is, he’s coming to the motel and he’s paying them.
“It doesn’t look like you’ve had any trouble getting tail for free,” I continue. “Is it because it makes it a job for them? To please you?”
I never asked the women who paid me.
But he shakes his head. “No,” he tells me. “When I pay them, they’re animals.” He pauses. “Farm animals.”
My fingers ache around the hilt.
He shrugs. “When I’m done eating, I just shove the sloppy, sticky dish under the shower for their next fuck.”
My mouth goes dry.
I grab his collar, yanking him from Santos. “Thank you for your honesty.”
I rear the blade back, my eyes on his throat, but then she’s there, slipping between him and me. Footfalls race over the bridge behind me, and I can only assume it’s my sister and Clay.
Krisjen grips my shirt at my stomach, her eyes looking up at me and pleading.
“Get out of my way,” I growl. “I won’t make the same mistake as my father.”
If he had put my mom first, she wouldn’t have spent twenty years dying from the inside out. I’m not giving Milo Price a chance to succeed the next time he comes for my sister or Krisjen. Family comes first.
I glare at Price, but I hear the tears in Krisjen’s voice. “The only mistake would be doing something that risks you being taken from me.”
No one will take me from her.
“Look at me,” she begs, and I see Liv out of the corner of my eye. “Look at me.”
I meet Krisjen’s blue eyes.
“I love you,” she whispers. “You’re the only thing I’ve ever been sure about. I love you so much. He doesn’t have anything you have,” she whispers. “Look at what you have.”
Her gaze flits around me, and I don’t have to look to know my family is everywhere. My brothers, my sister, my friends—safe and alive.
“We come first,” she commands, and then leans in, whispering. “And his day will come.”
“Krisjen and I can fight our own battles,” Liv adds.
My hand shakes with the knife. This has to happen. He has to go.
“Don’t leave me,” she begs. “You’re not going to want to look at me”—she presses her body into mine—“through a piece of glass.”
An image of me talking to her in jail and not being able to touch her flashes in my mind. An image of her sleeping without me.
That’s not what a man does.
I grind my teeth together. She’s right. Making sure that I’m always at her side comes first.
I lower the blade and release Milo. Wrapping my arms around her, I pull her into me and press my mouth to hers, gripping the back of her scalp and holding her so tight, she groans.
God, I love her. I bury my face in her hair. I love her so much.
“You’re smart,” she murmurs in my ear. “You’ll figure out how to get rid of him. Bide your time.”
Damn right. I hold her to me, pressing my lips to her forehead.
“Enjoy your whore,” Milo bites out. “You dirty piece of Swamp shit.”
Balling my fists, I pull back from Krisjen, holding her eyes.
And she sees it. “Macon…”
“I won’t kill him.” I kiss her again and then push her behind me, dropping the knife and grabbing Price by the collar, hammering my fist down onto his face.
“Oh, Jesus,” my sister gripes.
Milo falls to the floor of the bridge, and I raise him up again, hitting him so hard, a slice of pain hits my knuckles like I’ve been stabbed.
I shove him to Santos. “Get him in the truck.”
He throws him over his shoulder and carries him off the bridge. We all follow.
“What are you doing?” Krisjen asks.
“Just taking him home.”
We climb into the cab of the vehicle, Santos and Milo in the bed with Dallas and Trace and the women in the back seat.
Army drives as rain starts to fall, but we’re in St. Carmen’s town center before it starts to pour. We cruise past restaurants, the dress shop where Liv worked, and the Harbor Point Fishing Boat. We coast through the roundabout.
People eat under awnings on the sidewalk and watch us pass, and I’m guessing that it’s my truck, and not that we’re speeding, that catches their attention. Coasting into a parking space, Army ignores the meter, and we both hop out, heading to the tailgate. Dropping it, I take Milo from Santos and don’t even bother standing him up. Dragging him as he kicks and tries to get his feet under him, I haul him over to the police station, seeing Chavez slowly descend one step at a time down the station stairs.
I drop Milo at the foot of the steps. “Tell your superiors to keep their trash out of the Bay,” I tell the officer.
Milo spits blood, coughing as he tries to stand up. “Arrest him,” he sputters.
“Shut up,” Chavez warns him.
Milo pushes himself to his feet. “Arrest them!”
I turn, finding Krisjen, but then her eyes go wide.
“Macon!”
I look behind me, seeing Milo come with his fist cocked. He hits me to the ground, my cheekbone slamming against the pavement. I wince, the cut in my skin spreading like a fire over my face. I try to push myself up, shaking my head clear, but I see something out of the corner of my eyes and look just in time to catch his leg before he kicks me.
I grab him, yank him, and push myself up, slamming him in the jaw.
He falls to the ground, and I climb to my feet, a crowd growing around us. Chavez remains on the stairs.
I circle Milo, waiting for him to try again.
He rises, zones in on me, and then…He shoots off, rushing me.
Slamming into me, he pushes us to the pavement, and I feel the pebbles in the street dig into my leg. My elbows scrape against the road.
We roll, I straddle him, my blood spilling onto my clothes from the cut in my face. I punch once.
And then again. His eyes roll into the back of his head, and I stand up, take him by the collar, and drag him back to the steps.
Chavez looks down at the kid, not moving to help him.
I take a step back, and another. And another.
Milo is stupid, but he’s a fighter. It’s always fun with someone who doesn’t know when to quit. The next time will be especially enjoyable, because he’ll be older. As will his friend Callum Ames. Taking them down will be an actual challenge. Thank God.
I lean against the tailgate, looking at the diners as the cops spill out of the station, and Bay people who work in their restaurants stand paused with their trays.
Liv holds Clay’s hand, and I pull Krisjen back into my body, hanging an arm over her shoulder.
“I love you so goddamn much,” I whisper.
She leans her head back against my chest. “I suspected.”
And I smile, kissing her hair.
* * *
—
The next morning, we still haven’t slept.
We stayed up all night, talking about our favorite holidays, our worst memories, if we believed in God, my favorite body part of hers, and why the electric bill has more than doubled since she started staying here the past couple of months. We agreed. It’s her long hot showers.
And we spent a lot of time not talking. Hours not talking. We need to leave this bed, though. If only because I want to look forward to her tonight.
I hold her to me, grazing my fingers up and down her back. “We should wait to have kids,” I say. “Okay?”
I don’t want to talk about this now, but she may take my previous statements as an invitation to stop birth control.
“Do you want them?” I ask her.
She lifts her eyes to me, nodding. “You?”
“I think so.” I’m almost thirty-two. I don’t want to be an old father, but I don’t want to be a bad one, either. “I should…I need some time.”
I feel good today. I feel better a lot lately, but it might not last. I can’t make her any guarantees. I’m not ready for kids. Not yet.
She touches my face. “I want you to talk to someone.”
I shift underneath her. I really don’t want to do that.
“I’d be destroyed if anything happened to you,” she whispers. “You need someone who knows what they’re doing. Will you try?”
I swallow hard. I’ll do anything she wants me to. Not that I’d be okay losing anyone in my life, but I can’t lose her. I want us happy.
Every day doesn’t have to be easy, but I want her to know every day that I love her.
“Okay,” I reply.
She smiles, and I feel her body relax in my arms.
“I’ll be a handful, you know,” I warn her.
And I don’t even mean the moods.
She laughs. “I’ve got two hands.”
She slides on top of me, kissing my lips. “I know who you are,” she says. “And I want every minute of it.”
I grip her ass, rubbing her over my groin. “You sure?”
“Oh, baby, I won’t be a picnic, either.” She kisses me deep, slipping her tongue in again and again. “But you like pains in the ass.”
I break out in a smile. They seem to be my lot in life.
Just then, we hear a bellow outside the door. “Ah!” someone shouts.
Was that Mars?
There’s pounding on the stairs, and then I hear Dallas. “Get these clothes out of the dryer!”
We hold each other, listening.
“Macon!” Trace calls out. “We can’t live like this. We’re going to need another bathroom. Like, yesterday!”
Yeah, we need the addition to the house finished, like, yesterday. We’re at full capacity.
I bury my face in Krisjen’s neck, rethinking my desire to leave the bedroom at all. Ever again.
But she pops up, straddling me. “Oh, can we get a Christmas tree today?”
I shake my head. “I’m not stepping foot in that shithole of a town right now.”
She flashes me a bold smile along with her breasts. “Good things do come from that shithole.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “You know you like to slum.”
I arch up, kissing her chest, her neck. “My little princess from the wrong side of the tracks…”
She circles my neck with her arms, both of us stirring again.
But just when I think I’ve successfully distracted her, she pulls back and looks down at me. “Tonight,” she tells me. “We’ll take everyone out for food, pick out a tree, put the kids to bed, and then we’ll break into Mariette’s for dessert and have sex on one of the tables.”
I chuckle. Fine. “With the skates?” I ask, hopeful.
She smiles wide, but then stops me as I start to kiss her neck again and glances over her shoulder to where they lie on my bedroom floor. “Hey, how did they get in your bedroom, by the way?”
I crash back on the bed, squeezing my eyes shut. “Ah, shit.”
Fuck. I totally forgot about that.
“Macon?”
“I can explain,” I rub my eyes. “Just give me a sec…”
But she grabs my throat, her eyes zoning in like bullets. “Explain…what?”
“Nothing happened.”
Her scowl deepens. “What didn’t happen?”
I hold up my hands in surrender, loving everything about having her in my bed with me, and trying to keep the laughter at bay.
She’ll be a handful, indeed.
And I’m here for all of it.
EPILOGUE
Krisjen
Four Years Later
I think I’ll marry Army next. Or Trace. He’s agreeable and teachable. Why not? It’ll be great.
Or…I could just run the Bay on my own. The newly widowed queen who steps in, because she’s a fucking widow now, because she’s going to kill Macon Jaeger!
“I need a shower,” he says, laughing as he comes through the door with his brothers.
I pull my thumbnail out of my mouth and spin toward him as I stand at the window.
He drifts into the dark house, the grandfather clock chiming 5:00 a.m. “Let me wake up Krisjen first.”
But I grab the framed picture of us, me in his arms, my legs wrapped around him, my happy smile peering over his shoulder as the camera captures only his back. Good times. Better days.
I throw it across the room, but it just clips his shoulder.
He rears back, stumbling, but then rights himself and looks in my direction. “Ow.” He rubs the spot it hit. “What the hell?”
“You’re two days late!” I bellow.
His face falls, and he holds out his hands like he’s trying to wrangle a horse. “I’m sorry, okay? I…”
But I grab the coffee-table book of Mammoth Cave that I got in Kentucky, because we just closed our eyes and picked a place on a map for our honeymoon.
I throw it as Army, Trace, and Dallas back up, out of the way. I grab the remote, a magazine, and a potted plant, and hurl every single one at my husband. He ducks out of the way as Trace chuckles at the scene.
“I told you it would be unpredictable,” Macon argues.
“And I told you to get a satellite phone!”
I hurl a candle, throw Dex’s soccer ball, and pick up the crystal bowl Clay got us for our wedding, but stop and put it back down. It’s pretty.
“Worrying my ass off, wondering if you were shot or strangled or kidnapped or sinking to the bottom of the ocean,” I yell. “And I can’t call the cops!”
He moves in. “Come here.”
“I’m not a fan of you right now!”
“Steel stomach, remember?”
Ugh! I stomp on his foot, and he grunts, clenching his teeth. Grabbing me, he swings me over his shoulder.
I flail, kicking. “Let me go!”
“Go to the bar for a while,” he tells his brothers. “I need to deal with this one.”
And I feel a slap on my ass. I flinch and then growl.
“Might get loud…” Dallas taunts.
“Don’t you spank me in front of them!” I shout.
“Don’t worry, Krisjen.” Trace chuckles, and I hear the door open. “We know you’re the boss of him.”
Laughter fills the air as they drift out of the house, and Macon spins around, carrying me up the stairs.
Tears spring to my eyes. I was so worried. Every second. At any moment, he could’ve been gone forever, and I might never know what happened to him.
“Let me go.” I slap his ass as I dangle there. “You deserve the silent treatment for the next two days after that stunt. Because that’s how long it’s been since I’ve slept!”
We reach the top, and he carries me into our bedroom, closing the door.
“Let me down!” I yell.
His hand grips the back of my thigh, his fingers crawling inward as he kisses against my jeans.
“I thought you were giving me the silent treatment,” he teases.
I clamp my mouth shut, pouting and trying to keep from crying out of relief as I hang there.
“We got the containers,” he whispers.
Fine.
“Then they pushed us overboard and tried to sink our boat,” he says.
I suck in a breath. Oh God.
That’s what I’d been afraid of.
I understand that these black-market deals to get lumber, steel, cement, and pipes—which all the local suppliers were either withholding or were overcharging for, thanks to Garrett Ames—could be dangerous, but I always hope Macon’s reputation will precede him.
But every once in while we run into a dealer who would just rather take the money, try to kill them, and sell the items they already sold again. It’s bad business, but when they’re coming from overseas, they don’t care. They’ll never see you again anyway.
“We took their boat instead,” he tells me. “I marooned them on Coral Cay. For now.”
Coral Cay is a small island with about one tree for shade, but otherwise it’s pretty barren. There’s nothing and no one, and if a ship or a Cessna does pass by—which is likely, given that it’s only a few miles off the coast—they’d hide. Anyone Macon sticks there doesn’t want to be caught anyway. There’s food and water, and he’ll go back in a few days once he’s found a cargo ship that he can stash them on to get rid of them.
It could’ve easily turned bad, though. It’s only a matter of time. What would happen to us if Trace had been lost? Or Army? It’s not just Macon I worry about. Losing anyone would devastate him.
He presses his lips into my thigh. “This is all I thought about out there in that black water,” he whispers. “Guns pointing at us…The depths below…I had to get back to you.”
A tear drops to the floor, and I wipe my eye.
“Still not talking to me?” he goads.
He puts me back on my feet, drops to his knee, and unbuttons my jeans, pulling them down below my ass. Yanking my underwear to the side, he sweeps his tongue up my flesh, and I gasp, gripping the dresser at my back. My clit starts to throb.
