Page 127 of Price of Angels

Maggie became serious. “You ought to’ve seen your dad’s face when Mercy called about the brick.”

Ava did her best impersonation of it, and Maggie laughed.

“Close…” She sobered again. “But seriously, it was a sight to behold. He gets angry all the time; seeing him scared always makes me queasy. I’m guessing Mercy has his very own version of that look.”

Ava sighed and leaned back in the chair, nodding. “He was furious. He was…Mom, I think if Michael hadn’t come to get Holly, he might have thrown her down the stairs. Literally thrown her.”

Maggie didn’t try to contradict her fear. Instead, her head tilted, face becoming thoughtful. “I don’t guess you remember it. Once, when you were eight” – during that time when the Carpathians wannabe MC had terrorized their city and their club – “we’d been cooped up in the house all week and I decided we had to get out. Kids shouldn’t be forced indoors all the time. Your dad didn’t even want you going to school. Jesus. But we had to go somewhere, so Mercy went with us to get ice cream. There was a woman waiting in line in front of us, and you dropped the book you were holding. It was heavy – how typical.” She rolled her eyes. “And it made this awful sound. The woman jumped, and when she spun around to look at you, she made this startled sound. Not a scream, but almost, and her hand went inside her jacket, and she made this face, like she was pissed off that you’d scared her. If she’d been a big guy in a leather jacket, she would have looked like she was reaching for a gun. But she was just some soccer mom.”

“I think I remember,” Ava said, the memory coming to her in blurry stops and starts. It wasn’t the woman, but Mercy’s reaction to her that she recalled.

“He was on her.” Maggie snapped her fingers for emphasis. “He pushed her back against the counter and put himself between you and her. He got a hand around her throat, before he realized she was screaming for real then, and that she was harmless.”

Her smile was almost sad. “Baby, he’d kill a priest in the middle of Mass if he thought he was a danger to you. We’ve always known it: Mercy has no rules but the rules of Ava. Morality was never part of the equation.”

Ava frowned. “Yeah, I know.”

“What’s up with that Holly girl anyway?” It was said with a dark frown.

“I don’t know, exactly. She’s really nervous, and she hides it with a smile. She acts like an abused dog, minus the reactionary biting.” Ava chewed at her lip, thinking how she wanted to describe it. “She’s always had a thing for Michael, according to the guys. He makes her feel safe, from what I can tell, and who am I to judge on that front?” She shrugged; she couldn’t very well blame anyone for finding one of these terrifying Lean Dogs a safe haven.

Maggie’s lips pressed together, but she didn’t say anything.

“What?”

“I’m not used to you taking up for people.”

Her hand ghosted to her belly out of instinct. It was the baby, she kept telling herself, that was making her sympathetic and sentimental. That, or almost losing Mercy on a bright Louisiana highway, on the day she’d faced her living, breathing demons.

“I feel sorry for her,” she said. “She’s not just one of these groupies we get around here.”

Maggie tipped her head in agreement. “True. She wouldn’t be with Michael if she was one of those.”

“We’ll call you,” Walsh said, folding his arms and planting his feet squarely apart. He wasn’t much of a barrier, on the physical front, but he’d seen his reflection enough times to know that his expression alone was a deterrent.

For most people. People with brains between their ears.

Abraham Jessup puffed up, incensed that he’d been escorted out of the clubhouse, the three prospects herding him and his brother like dimwitted cattle out the front door and into the parking lot.

“You can’t brush me off.” He lifted his phone in warning. “If I don’t get what I came for, all I gotta do is make one call–”

“Yeah, yeah. And your big-bad will rain hell upon us, right? Get lost. We’ve gotta take a vote and we’re all tired of looking at you. I’ll call when we’re ready to setup a meeting with Shaman. You’ll get what you ‘came for’ after, not before.”

Jacob Jessup sneered. “What kinda fruity accent is that s’posed to be?”

“The original accent of this language, actually,” he said evenly. “Now, are you going to walk to your car? Or are my boys going to carry you there?”

“You tell Teague he better not fuck around with us,” Abraham said, but both turned and retreated to their rusted hulk of a Buick.

Walsh watched them go with a sour, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Can I say something?” Littlejohn asked.

Walsh nodded.

“I really hate those fuckers.”

“You and me both, kid. Keep an eye out.” He put his back to the brothers. “If they set foot on the property again, I wanna know about it.”

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