Page 53 of Soulless Saint

“Boys!”

Ma put a hand to her chest. “Maggie is grieving, how could you just barge in on her at a time like this.”

“We heard a scream,” Kaleb was quick to defend us. “Turned out it was just Maggie, uh, crying in her bedroom, but…”

Dad pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

“It’s a good thing we went,” I added, skipping over the bits that didn’t fucking matter. “She told us Chief Andrews didn’t die of a heart attack.”

Dad jerked his head up, his slate eyes boring into me. “What? What’d she say?”

“Not much. She was worried about her son. Clearly they threatened her. But she did admit that someone killed the Chief, and said that if she ever saw who it was again, she’d recognize them.”

Dad sat back in his seat, his gaze shifting over the table as he considered this new information.

It was Ma’s muffled curse that broke the silence, and when I turned to her, it was to find her flipping her dinner knife around between her fingers, breathing heavily. The spark of the rage I’d inherited from both my parents alight in her eyes. Fucking dancing.

“Sloane?” Dad asked hesitantly as Ma slammed to her feet, reeling her arm back to impale the dining table with the knife.

“This is those bastards trying to claim your turf, isn’t it?”

Apparently, her rule of no work talk during dinner was being tossed. Good. As much as Mom wanted to remain ignorant to the worst of it these days, she needed to know this. She needed to be aware and wary.

Dad couldn’t look her in the eyes when he replied. “It’s likely. Yes.”

Ma threw her hands up.

“Come on, Sloane, sit down,” Dad urged. “We’re handling it.”

“If you were handling it, Chief Andrews wouldn’t…” She trailed off, losing her steam. She wouldn’t finish the sentence, but we all knew what she was about to say. She regretted it before she could even get the words out of her mouth. “Well, clearly, you could use a little help.”

Dad shook his head, lifting a hand in a halting gesture. “Sloane, I’m not asking for you to—”

“You don’t have to,” she interrupted him. “Maggie’s my friend. Dave Andrews, too. These assholes are on our land. Messing with our people. It’s more serious than you were letting on, Damien.”

“Fuck, Slo, I didn’t want to worry you. Like I said, we’re handling it.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Yes,” she agreed. “We are.”

Ma sank back into her seat and picked up her scotch, downing it in one, baring her teeth at the burn when she was through.

I didn’t think there was a damn thing that would ever make her pick up her gun again, but apparently I was wrong.

Ma yanked her dinner knife from the table, wiping it on her napkin before proceeding to hack through the rest of her meatballs.

“Eat your fuckin’ dinner.”

The sound of cutlery scraping porcelain was the only thing that broke the silence for the rest of dinner.

Hardin and I tried to excuse ourselves after supper but like fuck that was happening.

“Ah ah!” Ma chided, catching us by the front door. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Thought maybe you and Dad would want to talk, you know, alone.”

She shook her head, her long graying black hair swaying with the motion. “Nice try, smartass.”

I rolled my eyes at Hardin, kicking my shoes back off to trudge to the kitchen.

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