Thirty-Seven

Michael watched Sabrina walk away, waiting before following her into the kitchen. He used the time to remind himself there were reasons he stayed away from her. Reasons he should’ve kept staying away.

Ben … it was his fault he was here. The kid was worse than a twelve-year-old girl with his schoolyard bullshit.

But it hadn’t been Ben who forced him to follow her out here. It hadn’t been Ben who’d opened his mouth and said things to her he’d had no intention of saying. And it hadn’t been Ben who’d touched her. No, as usual, he hadn’t needed any help fucking things up. Just point him in the right direction and things got destroyed. That’s the way it had always been.

Story of his life.

He shed his jacket, tossing it over the back of the nearest chair. Reaching up, he pulled the knot loose on his necktie, yanking it wide to stave off the trapped feeling that suddenly gripped him. He kept pulling until the thing came loose in his hand and then popped open the first few buttons on his shirt. Nothing he did made it any better.

He remembered this feeling. Hated it. It was like a slow-moving train wreck only he could stop, but no matter how hard he pulled the brake, the wheels just kept rolling. People dumb enough to love him had a habit of getting killed. His parents. Frankie. Lucy. How many times could Sabrina dodge a bullet before one finally caught her? How many times could she die before it finally took?

He shut the front door and locked it, impressed with the heavy brass fixtures that secured it. Those were new. For the first time, he noticed the discreet security panel set flush into the wall, rows of lights offset by a pad used to read thumbprints. This was no commercial-grade system. He’d seen this kind of system plenty of times.

In FSS safe houses.

Apprehension tingled along his scalp. Taking a trip around the room, he noted things he’d been too preoccupied to see before. The way the front parlor window refracted the setting sun, bending the light with its thickness? Bulletproof glass. The blinking red lights in every corner of the room? Motion detectors. The almost springy feel of the floorboards beneath his feet? Pressure plates that almost surely triggered an off-site alarm. He rapped a couple of knuckles against one of the exterior walls. Solid. He’d bet his account in the Caymans that every inch was outfitted with Kevlar panels.

What. The. Fuck.

But he knew. Ben. It always came back to him, didn’t it? He spent time here. A lot of time. Miss Ettie treated him like he was one of her grandkids. Probably baked him fucking cookies and tucked him in at night. It made perfect sense that Ben would make sure the place was secure, so why did it piss him off so bad?

Because it hadn’t been him who thought of it, that’s why.

Get your head in the fuckin’ game, O’Shea—none of this matters. Not if you don’t let it.

Michael shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks and finally headed for the kitchen.

He entered quietly, leaning against the doorframe without a sound. Sabrina looked at him over her shoulder, stopping mid-sentence before continuing with what she was saying. “Like I said, all you need to know is that I’ll have a DNA report and death certificate by tomorrow morning.”

Lark, standing across the room, hips resting against the kitchen counter, looked like he was suddenly having second thoughts. “And like I said, I deserve to know where you’re getting your documents because it’s my ass doing the lying here. Shaw won’t fall for no Mickey Mouse shit,” he said.

“Oh, well, in that case, I’ll tell my contact to lay off the crayons,” Sabrina said, straightening her legs under the table. “And if you think that concern for your safety is going to entice me to give up my source, then Shaw should kill you, because you’re too stupid to live.”

Lark shifted again and rubbed a hand across his jaw before cutting him a look. “You wanna reel your girl in, O’Shea, before that mouth of hers gets her in trouble?”

Michael slid his gaze across the kitchen until it rested on the back of her head. “She’s not my girl.”

The words stiffened her spine, as if he’d punched her between the shoulder blades. She swung a look at him, hurt and anger flitting across her features. He held her gaze, forcing every shred of emotion he held from his face until it was nothing but a mask. He counted to five, letting her see the void before he looked at Ben. “Take her home.”

Ben hesitated. “Maybe you should be the one—”

“I’ve got more important things to do. Besides, I’m sure you walked her home plenty of times.” He kept his gaze locked on Ben’s face. He didn’t want to look at her. Couldn’t. Not when he was seconds away from coming completely unhinged.

“I’ll walk myself home,” she said in a hard tone, drilling him with a glare to match. The heat of it was like a hot poker in his chest. She left without a backward glance.

Good. The angrier she was at him, the easier it would be. He angled his head at the door, signaling Ben to follow her. “Stay with her.”

Ben paused for a moment, looking almost as pissed as Sabrina before he hit the door, slamming it closed behind him.

“You’ve always been way too good at that,” Lark said in the quiet, his booming voice held just above a whisper.

“Good at what?” He looked down at the boy curled into a ball on the floor next to Sabrina’s empty chair, sleeping what Michael would be willing to bet was the first real sleep he’d had in months.

“Pretending shit doesn’t matter.”

He looked up at Lark and laughed. “Are you fuckin’ serious? An hour ago you were running your mouth about what a number she’s done on me, now you’re pullin’ a Dear Abby because I won’t walk her home?”

Lark shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a complicated kinda guy.”

Michael leaned forward a bit, dropping his voice so it wouldn’t carry beyond Lark’s ears. “How’s this for complicated—that capsule I made you swallow is the least of your worries. If you fuck us over …” He shook his head, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. “The things I’ll do to you. By the time I’m done, you’ll be begging me to make the call.”

Lark smiled. “Yeah. You’ve always been good at that too.” He turned to leave, but Michael’s words stopped him cold.

“You think you’re up to the task?” Michael said. There was no need to elaborate, and Lark proved it by throwing him a look over his shoulder before turning to face him.

“To killing you? Probably not,” Lark said. “But I got a better shot than most.”

“What I don’t get is why. Shaw can kill me anytime he wants. So why get you to do it?” he said, pulling his shoulder away from the doorjamb to stand up straight.

Lark just laughed. “One thing I learned in my twenty-three months and eighteen days as his personal guard—Livingston Shaw gets off on making people do things they don’t want to do.” Lark picked his cup up off the counter and rinsed it out before placing it carefully in the sink. “Good night, partner,” he said before heading upstairs.